Dreamweaver has dialogue boxes to insert these but it is easier just to write in code view. In Dreamweaver's Code view (not the design view) in the fifth line find this:


Replace just the word "index" with your page title, something like:

Xuankong | Chinese Astronomy

The page title is a good place for keywords. Use ten words if you really need them, but don't repeat keywords. Each page's title should be as unique as possible from all your other pages.

Just below the page title tag, insert these:


The meta description is important because the search engine will often use it as the snippet on the results page.

The meta keyword is not so important to the search engines anymore, because it was abused. Don't use repetitions, up to ten different words is plenty. It is easy to overdo keywords, and the search engine will not favor that. So just write naturally in your page's content.

Mr.Drilldown,

It is like the following? The content I added in are xuankong-liufa-/4pillars astrology.ebooks and courses.
Please correct me , if I am wrong.

xuank3

4<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
5<title>xuankong-liufa/4pillars astrology/ebooks and courses</title><meta name="description" 6content="Sentence summarizing the topic" />
7<meta name="keywords" content="xuankong-liufa-/4pillars astrology/ebooks and courses" />
8<style type="text/css">

This example is just to show the format. You will probably have to scroll right to read it all. It would work better than nothing, but I'm sure you'll want to make adjustments.

Don't use slashes to separate phrases. In the title you could use " | " or " : " or " - " In the Meta keywords you could separate them by either a comma and a space, or just a space as shown here. You could make the description longer.

I didn't see the words astrology, 4 pillars, ebook, or course in the particular page you linked to. It's important to put every one of the words in your title also into the content of your page.

IF xuankong is closely related to feng shui, (a wild guess) consider adding feng shui in the title, description, and content, because people will search for it.

Anyone who can understand the mysteries of your complex topic certainly can learn to make sense of the code view. It is more logical and easier to pick up than English. If you are curious, explore other websites' code. In your browser's top toolbar, just click "View" > "Page Source."

Then that should be perfect, since it's done through the top menus of DW whether you're viewing a split screen, design or code view. Just look along the very top of the Dreamweaver menu, you should see "INSERT" which will drop down to "HEADTAGS" and you should be all set.

I looked in Dreamweaver 8 and found the meta keyword dialog box here:
Insert > HTML > Head tags > keywords, description, etc

It's hard to find things so many levels deep. 

The title seems to be found by a completely different route. 
Modify > Page Properties > Title/Encoding

Meta tags are not visual things, that is why they reside in the code view only. The dialog box may be a disappointment; it doesn't offer any help. The Help section offers the bare minimum of "help" about header.


To be frank, it took me a while to find these. I had actually never used them and now that I've found them, I intend to promptly forget about them. I view this as the "tail wagging the dog." Let me explain what I mean by that.

It was harder (for me) to find and understand how to make Dreamweaver (sort of) do what I wanted it to do, than it would be just to open the code view and edit these short code snippets. I think time spent trying to get the program to do something like this for me is wasted, and the next update of the program would probably send me chasing down where they moved it. In contrast, any time that I spend trying to understand how to get the code itself to do something for me seems more like it will be paid back.

What I think Dreamweaver is really excellent for is as a tool for expedited learning about the code. Tinker with a test page of code, check the design view and preview in browsers, Oops, that didn't work, change again, preview, repeat...

For parts of the webpage that will never be visual, in my opinion it is easiest just to paste them in the code directly and to edit them in code view when desired. I don't think Dreamweaver is much help for this.

As for whether people in the east or the west understand code, I think we all can agree code is an obstacle in the path of making the web truly accessible.

I sincerely hope that you will try looking at other pages code for sake of curiosity. (right click, View Page Source)  After only a brief look at your complicated webpage, I have confidence that code is within your reach to learn. Any time you spend learning about code would be well spent, and the good news is that learning about code is free to everyone who has web access.

Meta tags appear in the header but not on the page in a visual browser, and not in a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver. There are many different ones and each one has a distinct separate purpose. To overgeneralize, search engine robots read the code to learn information that applies to the whole page.

Meta description is one of the things that help the search engine robots disambiguate keywords that could possibly have several meanings. It often appears in the search engine results page so it should summarize and be inviting.

Meta keyword doesn't matter much. If you are managing a lot of websites and pages, it could be a reminder of the page's focus. If a search engine query brought up two pages from your own site the keywords might perhaps help the engine decide which one of your pages is more relevant. Least among other things, that is.

There are a lot of meta tags that don't often get used, such as meta author. Only use the meta tags that you need. Meta robots is commonly used for example, to tell bots not to index certain pages. It might be useful someday if you ever need it.

If you want to experiment with your webpage in Dreamweaver, define a test site and copy your page there, renaming it with a test name. Play with it there to your heart's content, mess it up and fix it until you know what thing does what. All in the secure knowledge that the original is still on your online website, and safely backed up in the real site in Dreamweaver.