Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

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DON’T duplicate site navigation in the title.

Whether generated automatically or writ-

ten by hand, page titles are often used as a place to mirror the navigational structure of

a site. We won’t say never for this because, if your site sections are named well, it can

be an effective way to display keywords. For example, a furniture store might have a

landing page titled “Frank’s Furniture – Patio Furniture – Wicker.” This works—the

navigation text is very brief and includes target keywords. But most sites aren’t built

this way, and you don’t want words like “Index,” “Main Page,” or “Our Products” to

take up space that’s best reserved for your targeted marketing message.

Tuesday: Meta Tags

In Chapter 3 you learned the basics of meta tags. Today you’ll optimize two invisible

text elements: the meta description tag, and the meta keyword tag.

Meta Description Tag

We see London, we see France. We see…your site’s meta description tag? Yes, not

unlike your undies, your meta description tag is something that usually stays hidden

but can be displayed to the world when you least expect it. For those rare times yours

is exposed, you want to be proud of what people see (and here it’s probably best to

drop the undies metaphor). Many sites make the mistake of leaving this tag out of their

code. Today you’ll make sure yours is not only present, but also written with your SEO

goals in mind.

As you learned in Chapter 3, the search engines usually display snippets from

your site text in their listings. Here are some possible scenarios in which your meta

description tag might be displayed instead:

• When there is no HTML content on the page, such as in the case of an all-Flash

or all-graphics site, or if the only content is a redirect to another page

• When someone searches for your site using your URL but no keywords

• When off-page factors make your site a relevant match for a search but no exact

match is found in your site’s text

• In less-sophisticated search engines that use the description tag as a workaround

for their inability to display snippets

Search engines often display 150 characters or more for the listing description, so

you have a lot of space—relative to the page title, anyway—to convey your message. So, if

Now:

Write optimized page titles for each of your landing pages, and add them to your Site

Optimization Worksheet.

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