Table of Contents
To the layperson, metadata is only something that would be subconsciously processed, however to an SEO, metadata is of the utmost importance in ensuring each website project rank highly as well as organically. So, what is metadata made up of?
Title tag
Write a short title tag for each page, as this will be the page’s title tag in the search engine results. You would therefore need to do keyword research to determine which terms you would like to rank for. In most cases it may be a good idea to use two or three competitors each page ranking for the same key phrase and see which one is ranked the highest.
One thing to keep in mind here is that most users and search engines will only look at the first 40-50 characters of the title tag (all white space before the title tag). So you do need to write in a succinct way, that contributes to that page’s title description and also encourages users to click to your site.
Meta descriptions
It’s important to believe that meta tags do not affect search results. However, the higher you rank in the SERPs, the better the likelihood that users will click to your site from the searches. Thus meta descriptions could be considered more important than any other meta tag.
Heading tags
Heading tags are another important element Google uses to help users and spiders separate keywords the search engine thinks are important from the rest of the text on the page. You can, however, put major keywords in a heading tag, and then, if you are describing page content, you can use it in the h1 HTML header tag.
Make sure you use h1 HTML tags correctly when you are writing on a page, and keep the heading within a reasonable size, generally signifying about 1.5 times larger than the normal body copy.
HyperTags
With respect to the description of your page that appears in Search Engine Results pages, the h1 HTML header tag provides another important place for keywords. Very similar to heading tags, the h1 HTML header tag only provides another detail that is easy to read, and not really even all that important, as positioning your keywords prominently is a significant factor in getting your page a high ranking in the SERPs.
Large amounts of original content
Providing well-written content is key to any successful marketing strategy. The additional focus you can give to function a list of keywords by incorporating them in a small number of relevant words, using easily identifiable words, is one of the best ways to attract the search engines to an article, product, or service. When writing a title tag, be sure to ensure you include one or two keywords at a time, and also make sure the keyword content includes them all.
Create a title tag that’s based on keywords
It may be a good idea to add a unique tag to each page, making it keyword-based. Essentially you will use keywords that best relate to the page, adding some words that users would type in the search box to find the information on the page.
For example, a separate title tag for the parenting page may be used that incorporates the name of the topic, and the parents, and so on. This way, each title tag is geared to a particular page, and not to the overall topic, and helps the page load more quickly and effectively.
As with the h1 HTML header set for your entire website, it is important you add keywords that are correctly placed in the page title. In addition to this, it may help to also write the page content in order to include the keywords. In order to know how many times phrases should be integrated, test your text on the different search engines and add them to the tool provided in the OpenOffice.org program.
How would you find these keywords?
One way to correctly find your keywords is by using a keyword research tool like Google’s, Overture’s, or Wordtracker’s Keyword Suggestion tool. You then input the URL and the tool will return an SEO-friendly number that will help you determine the density of each word of your page for each of the keywords you input. This number is an important factor in knowing the keywords to use for each page.
Content
Simply typing in keywords into the title tag of the page, or any other title tag, will not guarantee that the page will be shown if you are keywords-optimized. Although the higher up on the page the keyword appears the better, it is also important to know that page position can make a big difference. One article page can get much more attention than another.
Keyword optimization
To be best recognized by your target audience you may want to keep several pages on your website offering the same or similar information. Research visibility is important, but the design and quality of the writing is just as important.
Prior to becoming an author for Technical Writers, Cooper took the opportunity to explore the digital world with a range of academic and training courses. His first-hand experience within the tech industry, in addition to his degree in English Literature, cemented his career in creating content regarding all things online marketing including SEO and website design.
