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If I create 400 to 600 word text content using optimized keywords for the product featured on the web page, do I need meta description and keyword tags for the page?
My opinion is that the text tells what the page is about and the search engines will pickup up the text to describe the page, eliminating the need for meta descriptions and tags.
Am I off base?
Due to previous abuse of the meta data fields, search engines currently weight their value very low. The main reason we still encourage it is the fact that it is a way to get that extra push. Two identical pieces of content will be ranked differently if one has meta data and the other doesnt (or optimized meta data vs non-optimized).
There's no need to 'skip' optimization work. You want the best most-optimized and SE friendly site possible. This isnt a high-school term paper where a B is good enough (at least, it shouldnt be).
-BEC
Yahoo and LIve still use meta tags but not exclusively, Google does not.
Search engines today read the text in your pages, not your meta tags. They look in the <body> for keywords they are spidering. If your page has the words 'vitamins' and 'nutrients' then the search engine will pick on those individual words and there's nothing you can do about it nor would you want to assuming you're optimizing for those words. Most search engines will ignore your meta tags since they are abused and copied by unscrupulous webmasters.
The keywords meta tag does very little, if anything for you with most search engines these days. However the keywords meta tag can't do any harm so it can be useful as 'homework' to remind you what a particular page is being optimized for. The only down side is that a competitor might check your keywords meta tag and learn something about how you see your products.
My only advice for you is to make your text 'human readable'. In other words, stuffing key words or phrases into a paragraph without paying attention to meaning is not a good practice. It has to make sense since by now a search engine like Google is analyzing the whole set of meanings on the web page (semantic analysis).
Thank you Roban. Your input was very helpful and the way I was leaning to
make my pages more search engine friendly.
Google uses meta description tag and it's even very important as it will be shown in search results.
When having your search keywords in meta description tags, the tags will be shown fully with those keywords highlighted. Otherwise parts of your page texts will be shown having dots between.