When making and editing websites, the most important thing to consider is relevancy. How you connect users with the best website is all about how relevant that page is. This is where META data plays a very important role.
2. AUTHOR PAGE:
Daniel Reed
Daniel Reed is an SEO
and Internet Marketing
consultant at Kwai. Before
Kwai, Daniel was a Social
Media and Internet
Marketing consultant for
a Recruitment
Consultancy. Follow him
on Twitter @kwaimind!
3. TABLE OF CONTENTS:
What is META all about..………………….….…5
Writing Effective META Titles..………………..9
Collecting Clicks with META Descriptions...12
Ditching META Keywords………..……….…….16
4. CHAPTER 1:
What is META all about?
When making and editing websites, the
most important thing to consider is
relevancy. How you connect users with the
best website is all about how relevant that
page is. This is where META data plays a
very important role.
// Page 4
5. META DEMYSTIFIED | KWAI
Optimising your META data can make the difference between
a click and a missed opportunity, and will save a lot of messy
editing later.
The 3 forms of META data are:
Title: The title as seen in a web browser
Description: The description under the link in a search
engine
Keywords: The old-fashioned technique of defining a page
for keywords
META Data is your
chance to grab a
searchers attention
and earn their click
// Page 5
6. CHAPTER 2:
Writing Effective META Titles
Good titles are not a hard thing to do.
Industry leaders such as SEOmoz have found that Search
Engine spiders, the automated robots that read web
pages, read from the top down, just as a human would.
The first thing a Search Engine reads is the <TITLE> tag, the
header of the web browser. Hence, this is the first place that
you can begin to tell the Search Engines what your page is
about.
// Page 6
7. META DEMYSTIFIED | KWAI
Be blunt. If your website is about Graphic Design in Montreal
the say it. The code you need is:
<title>Your Great Title Here</title>
And use pipes | as a separator for multiple keywords such as
<title>Your Great Title Here | Great Titles
Online</title>
So your title will appear in the search results and in the web
browser. This is also the place to put your most important
keywords
META TITLES ON A RESULTS PAGE
// Page 7
8. META DEMYSTIFIED | KWAI
So, the top tips for META Titles are:
Use your most important keywords in the title that
emphasize the value of your page.
Be straight and to the point. These keywords will be bold
if they match a search query so make sure your page
jumps out .
Don’t keyword stuff…this will look messy and can result in
a search engine penalty.
Use no more than 70 characters. 71+ get ignored.
Make your Titles unique. Don’t just copy one across your
website as this limits your keyword potential, can result in
a penalty and looks un-professional.
// Page 8
9. CHAPTER 3:
Collecting Clicks with META
Descriptions
With so much competition on a results page, your description
needs to present your value proposition as clearly as possible.
META descriptions are where you can follow up a search query
and make the reader click on your website rather than a
competitors. Offering something unique, or clearly describing
your pages can improve your click-through-rate
// Page 9
10. META DEMYSTIFIED | KWAI
META Description:
<head> <meta name="description"
content=Describe the page in 155 characters or
less and put it in-between your head tags">
</head>
Be descriptive and appealing. Google will pick its own
choice of text on your page so this is your chance to use
your power and market your page in your own words.
Use key words, attractions and see what your competitors
are writing and improve on that
REMEMBER: Be unique…each page on your website has its
own unique quality so make sure you do the same with
your descriptions.
However, your not Trotsky…keep it around 155 characters.
Any more and Google will shorten it.
LOST KEYWORDS AND VALUE PROPOSITION
// Page 10
11. CHAPTER 4:
Ditching META Keywords
When META was originally used as a key indicator
of a webpage’s content, META keywords were
used as a method of summarising the target
keywords of the page.
However, as search engines became more
sophisticated and some webmasters began to
keyword stuff and spam the META keyword line,
its relevancy became less and less. Today, leading
SEO thinkers discourage META keyword use.
// Page 11
12. META DEMYSTIFIED | KWAI
For modern SEO’s.
the most powerful
tactic is to used
these keywords in
the actual body
content of your
webpage.
Creating
valuable, relevant
and interesting
content, whilst
targeting specific
keywords is a much
better SEO strategy
rather than stuffing
in a few keywords.
You can use free software like the Google Keyword Tool to find
which keywords your users are searching for, and develop your
page content around that.
// Page 12
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