Although it is thought that these tags do not hold as much importance as they once did, I feel for myself at least to still put a high importance on them - can't hurt!

JB

Don't forget, a lot of the larger search engines also use the meta tags to help determine duplicate content within your site. If you use the same ones across a couple of pages, then those pages will most likely never see the light of day.

Don't forget, a lot of the larger search engines also use the meta tags to help determine duplicate content within your site. If you use the same ones across a couple of pages, then those pages will most likely never see the light of day.

Sounds like expert SEO advice to me. You obviously have sound insights into what it is the search engines are rewarding according to what they are instructing us to create.

The one thing anyone who has been doing SEO for a while knows (and I hate that phrase "doing SEO") is that a website with good content ultimately ranks well for the phrases it chooses to rank well for. Why? Because good content by its very nature is what the search engines want. This is because:

1) Good content naturally contains the keywords users are looking for

2) The keywords will also be in the appropriate markup like <hx> tags and <em> tags, etc., because that's what the page is about

3) Good content encourages other websites to link to them unilaterally (a.k.a link baiting). We all know just how valuable this is in Google's algorithm and MSN as well.

4) If a web designer/developer takes usability and accessibility into consideration, and everyone should, their site will naturally be friendly to the search engines' crawlers as they are essentially no different then a screen reader or other accessibility-usability-needy user.

Originally Posted by Webvicious

Using meta-tags is still a good practice, the Title tag being the most important to the ranking of the page. Sites that have the same meta-tags on each page are most likely not getting ranked for all their pages like they could. Unique content on each page is key of course. I would suggest having a nice content rich homepage and then building out pages focused on different topics related to your site. Keep adding pages and your traffic will increase. Go out and get some backlinks and you are on your way!