Okay, so you have now mastered keyword research and have your new keyword for your website selected. Great! Now what? How do you prove to the search engines that you are a valuable source on the subject you’ve chosen? That’s exactly what we will be going over in this post.
On Page Optimization vs Off Page Optimization
When the search engines crawl your site and others, it keeps a track of a few things. One of those things is on page information such as what you are talking about on your website, the structure of your site, and even how many links you have on your site. The second thing it looks at is off page information such as how many other people are linking to your site, who is linking to your site on social media, and what are others saying about you. Understanding what you must do both to be at the top of search is a crucial first step in the process.
Where to Start with SEO – Meta Data
Meta Data is a way of telling the search engine what a particular page is about. Many search engines could crawl pages and take a good guess, but it is never as clear as a persons point of view on what a page is. That is why most search engines use meta data. It’s an opportunity for the user to tell the search engines what the main focus of a page is.
Here is an example of what Meta Data looks like in code:
<title>this is your title</title>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword1, keyword2, keyword3″ />
<meta name=”description” content=”This page is about…” />
If you are running a program such as WordPress to run your website, you can simply use plugins such as All in One SEO to insert your meta data for each page via a text box. See an example of what it looks like in the picture below…
Meta Data – The Title
The title is by far the most important part of your meta data info. For many search engines, including Google, this is the only meta data that actually counts towards the search engine results. This tile also shows up as the link to your page in those search engine results. This is why you should spend a little time making sure it sounds catchy, as well as have your main or long-tailed keyword towards the front of the title.
Note: Your title should not be longer than 60 characters. Google displays 69 characters in their results, but some other search engines show a little less. If you want to be safe,go with no more than 60.
Meta Data – The Meta Description
While this is not used by many search engines to actually rank content, it still shows up in the Google search results right under the link to your site. This can prove to be a vital part of your conversion process. Many people will read this section before they actually visit the site. If it is not catchy enough, you may lose a lot of potential customers.
Note: Your meta description should not be longer than 150 characters for the most part. Google accepts 156 characters, but Bing only accepts 150 characters so try to go with 150 characters just to be safe.
Meta Data – The Meta Keywords
This used to be used by all search engines to see what a page is about. So if your website was about toys then your keywords might be: toys, toys for kids, play things, etc. Due to many websites abusing the meta keywords, it is no longer used to determine search engine results. It is still a good idea to put them in there though. Other search engines use them every once in a while, but it really just depends on the search engine.
Note: It may not be a good idea to put too many keywords in the meta keywords section, you don’t want to look like you are spamming.
A Visual Picture
The picture below shows the results for “Surpass Hosting” in the Google search results. As you can see, the title and meta description are shown but not the keywords. This is the layout for most search engines. So keep in mind that what you are writing for isn’t only going to be viewed by search engines, but also by people. This is why you must be both technical and creative. Its a weird balance, but the outcome is worth it!
– David P.
David P. is a Web Developer for SurpassHosting.com, Inc. and has been in the web design and search engine optimization industry for the past seven years learning several web based languages along the way such as PHP, MySQL, HTML, and Javascript.
Do you have your own website? What methods do you use to make sure you’re seen? Let us know at our Facebook Page, our Twitter, or by sounding off in the comments below!