Search engine optimisation includes a lot of different techniques to improve the content and design of a website and to attract more search engine traffic and links from other websites. There are two broad methods that can be followed to attempt to achieve high search engine results. One method includes ethical practices and intends to make search engines perform better and to contribute meaningful information to the web. This is popularly known as White Hat SEO. The second method involves generating large quantities of error free and keyword rich content that floods search engines with a view to get as much money from ad revenue as possible. This method of search engine optimization is known as Black Hat SEO.

The main philosophy behind white hat SEO is to provide a useful, well constructed web site full of useful information and details. When your website has a high quality content, it will be linked to by other high quality sites. The website will gain a slow to grow, but loyal fan base, and search engines will notice this and will endorse your site to a high rank.

At the same time, black hat SEO try to influence the system purely for their own benefit, and search engines are constantly hiring new people to help them combat black hat tactics. When websites that follow black hats infiltrate a search engine’s results, web users will become frustrated with the lack of information found through that particular engine. Therefore it requires search engines to be on their toes always to thwart black hats, and to make it easier for appropriate and quality web sites to rank high.

While black hats are often spammers, looking to make easy money, white hat optimization is for websites that want to be found. But their sole purpose is not to generate traffic just to fool people, but to provide useful information to the users. A website that follows white hat techniques will have an attractive design, and easy to use navigation. You can help promote your site by contributing meaningful remarks on other web sites that you respect. But, don’t leave meaningless messages that simply endorse your site. This might decrease the overall quality of the entire web, and could be considered spam.

In earlier days, when the Internet was still pretty new meta tags were everything. They were vital in helping search engines determine what the site was all about and how to rank the site in their search results. When the databases were smaller and more manageable, this meta tag provided a quick and easy way to figure out which keywords were important on a site. At that time, meta tags were king. Many SEO services could get web sites placed high because of the presence of meta tags.

As the Internet grew larger beyond all expectations, there was fierce competition in trying to get into the search engine’s top ranking. SEO services who could not get their sites ranked through fair means resorted to unfair means. In an effort to bring traffic to their site they abused the system by incorporating useless and completely irrelevant keywords into their meta tags.

With the result that today, Google and most other major search engines pay little or no attention to meta tags. What is given more importance is the content within the pages of the site. A few engines still take notice the words within the meta tags, but they are used more as minor supplements to the actual content and title tag of the web page.

So, should you or shouldn’t you use meta keyword tags anymore? It certainly couldn’t hurt to use it. Search engines use many different factors to determine site rankings, so it makes good sense to use meta tags along with any other acceptable and legitimate technique that is available. At best, it increases your chances of getting a higher ranking and there’s no downside to it unless you rampantly stuff your page with irrelevant keywords.

If you still intend using meta tags, first write your content based on relevant keywords and then create a title tag and meta description tag using the same keywords.