Common Mistakes in the HEAD section of a Website

Some of the most common and often made mistakes when designing a website is in the Head section of the HTML page. This article assumes that you have some experience in website design and HTML, but still are in the novice stage.

Let me just say before starting that, yes, I have made many of these mistakes myself. I think most have, whether they want to admit it or not!

1)  I am including this very common mistake made by novice web designers even though this is not actually inside the HEAD tags. I don't know how many times I've seen in a forum the question "why is my page not doing what I told it to do?" A big reason is because many designers mistakingly omit the DOCTYPE declaration that should be the very first line of your HTML page. (Preceding the opening HTML tag). When not included, or when incomplete, IE, (Internet Explorer), immediately goes into "Quirks" mode. Which in short means that the browser will render your HTML and CSS in a backwards compatible fashion. It will be as if you were writing your code 5 to 10 years ago. On a good note though, Opera browser always renders pages in standards–compliant mode. But unfortunately, IE is still the most commonly used browser. So, always start your page with an accurate DOCTYPE. You are well advised to spend some time researching DOCTYPE declaration before you move any further!

2)  The very first line after the opening HEAD tag should be the () tag. Make it easy for the search engines to find it! This is actually very important if you are seeking top position in search engine results such as Google or Yahoo. The title of a web page appears in your browser´s title bar when you open a new page. This is also what the search engine uses to describe your site in their results page. So it is critical that you use at least 3 of your top search keywords in the title. The biggest mistake made here is not using key search words or phrases and titling the page "Home Page", or only using the name of your company as the title.

3)  The head element contains general information, also called meta-information, about a document. Meta means "information about". The two meta tags that should always be used are the "Description" and the "Keywords" tag. The "Description" tag is used to further describe your site, and is used to index your pages. It is also used to describe your site in the search engine results page by some search engines. As a note, Google does not use the meta description tag in the results page, but instead will create its own description for the page. Once again, two or three of your search keywords should be used in the "Description" tag. Don't make this mistake and not use your keywords here!

The "Keywords" tag has been said to have been dropped by the search engines. However, it is still looked at and used for indexing purposes. Do NOT overlook this tag. But most importantly, DO NOT abuse this tag. Many website designers have used meta tags for spamming, like repeating keywords to give pages a higher ranking. This is why the search engines, especially Google, have changed the way they use the "Keywords" tag in their algorithms. Again, you are well advised to spend some time researching the use of keywords for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) use. I have read in some articles that Google completely ignores the "keywords" tag. In my opinion, it can't hurt to have it in. The biggest mistake made is repeating the same word, or repeating and over-using a certain word used in different phrases. This will definitely be seen as spamming and will most likely do you more harm than good. Another common mistake made with the "Keywords" tag is including words or phrases that don't even appear on your web page.

In closing, I can't emphasize enough the importance of researching thoroughly before sending your site out live on the web!

I hope I have been able to help eliminate some grief caused by mistakes made. Especially when your site looks great, but isn't producing the results you want from the search engines.