This is one of those things that are right in front of you, but you don't see its use. When we start out to make web pages, the first thing that we're told as a way to optimize it is to use <meta> tags. These tags virtually contain the data that you want to feed to search engines and any other application which quickly skims through your page to find the relevant details. All algorithms give priorities to <meta> tags and the details held in them. So, how does that account towards your blog?

Blogger default

Blogger in itself provides us with the <$BlogMetaData$> smart tag, which when inserted generates all the necessary meta content for your blog. Remember filling up the title, description and what nots when making your blog? Yes, those get translated to code here! This is all good, but the problem is, this gives Blogger the upper hand as it predecides some things when generating those details. Why not take back your META content and truly show your blog the way you want it to be shown?

Hacking the META

If you are using a pre-designed Blogger template, chances are its meta content comes from Blogger using the smart tag. If you view the source markup of your main page, you'll see that the <$BlogMetaData$> is replaced with a bunch of code that looks something like this:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" />
<meta name="generator" content="Blogger" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="" />
<link href="" rel="image/x-icon">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="f" type="image/x-icon">

<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="" href="" />
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="" />

the Yep! Now you know where that came from. Its these lines that we're going to be fiddling around with to get them to hold the data we want them to hold. The first three lines should be left as they are. They are of no immediate concern. The first line is very important, as it will allow foreign characters to be displayed correctly on your blog. So leave these lines be.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" />
<meta name="generator" content="Blogger" />

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The next line decide the address of your feed which is passed to applications.

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="?" />

If you use Firefox or Opera, you'd have noticed the feed icon pop up in the address bar to the extreme right on blogs, which you can click to add Live Bookmarks. Where do you think Firefox gets to know where to find your feed? Yep! It's here! Why not change it to point to your Feedburner feed, and get all the benefits they have to offer?

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These two contain the URL to the Favicon which you can use. Follow that link to find out more.

<link href="?" rel="image/x-icon">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="?" type="image/x-icon">

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The last two lines should be left as they are as well. You should copy them straight from the ones generated by Blogger. I don't know what they do, but I doubt they're not important. As pointed out by Phydeaux3 in the comments, the two lines in question (link rel="service.post" and link rel="EditURI") are necessary for ATOM discovering. They point third party apps to the ATOM API so that they know where to post! :) These lines are generated by the same smart tag, but are not a part of the meta content. Since you aren't using your smart tag anymore, its better to add these in:

<style type="text/css">
    @import url("http://www.blogger.com/css/blog_controls.css");
    @import url("http://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?blogID=21610108");
</style>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.blogger.com/js/backlink.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.blogger.com/js/backlink_control.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript">?</script>

The last line will again be blog specific, hence you'll have to copy it from your blog's source upon page load.

Ofcourse, if anything messes up, you can always include that one itsy-bitsy tag in place of all this, and you'll be back on your way. Meta content can really make or break a pages ranking and visibility. So make sure yours are good and really explain your blog well. My meta content being the way it is, if you search for Aditya Mukherjee, my blog will show on the front page, which is good! :) So you can see how well they work!

So go ahead! Try it out!