YOUR META CONTENT
We mentioned the Meta Content that is used within the <head> section of a website.
The three main items that you need to get right are as follows.
Meta Content - Page Title
This is the text that Google reads when indexing your website. It is always displayed in the blue bar right at the top of the screen. The image to the right shows the meta page title from a page on this website. Note that the Page title Meta is the only meta content that is visible on the screen.
The Page Title is where Google gets its first clue to your webpage content so it is probably the most important of the Meta content tags that we use for onsite optimisation. Your home page title meta must reflect what your business does, for example it could be something like <title>Trade Training Manchester for plumbers, electricians and joiners</title>.
Note that the above title has 65 characters. This is the maximum that Google will display in its snippet in the search results. It is also very important that each page on your website has unique and relevant titles that include the key phrase being targeted for that page.
What Google Says...
"Make sure that each page on your site has a useful and descriptive page title (contained within the title tags). If a title tag is missing, or if the same title tag is used for many different pages, Google may use other text we find on the page."
Keywords Meta Content
This is a list of keywords that apply to the page (not to the site). Google no longer uses keywords Meta content in its ranking algorithm. A long time ago it was realised that they were too easily used to "game" the system so they were dropped. Many web designers (me included) still include these as some of the smaller search engines use them and if nothing else they serve to remind us what phrase or word each page has been optimised for.
E.G.
<meta name="Keywords" content="title tag, description tag, meta tag, meta content, SEO, search engine optimization, website promotion"/>
Page Description Meta Content
As you would expect this is a description of what the page contains. Once again Google no longer uses it in its ranking algorithm. It is however still important since Google often uses the page description as the snippet of text that is displayed in its results. If it says the wrong thing people may not click through to your website even though you are at the top of the results. Google only displays the first 150 characters of your description (including spaces). There is no point in making your descriptions any longer than this as they will be truncated.
E.G.
<meta name="Description" content="We mentioned the Meta Content that is used within the <head> section of a website. The three main items that you need to get right are listed on this page."/>
What Google says...
"Why does Google care about meta descriptions?
We want snippets to accurately represent the web result. We frequently prefer to display Meta descriptions of pages (when available) because it gives users a clear idea of the URL's content. This directs them to good results faster and reduces the click-and-backtrack behavior that frustrates visitors and inflates web traffic metrics.Keep in mind that Meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don't achieve this goal and are less likely to be displayed in place of a regular, non-meta description, snippet. And it's worth noting that while accurate Meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won't affect your ranking within search results."
META CONTENT – ACTIONS REQUIRED SUMMARY
- Ensure that each of your page titles target the required keywords or phrase and preferably place the key phrase at the start of the title. If you think you need your company name in the title place it at the end but consider if you really need it there. Will people be searching for the keywords or your company name?
- Ensure that all of your page titles are different.
- Ensure that your Meta description is written in a way that will encourage people to click your site link when it appears in the search results list. Make the description attractive with relevant information about the page content and try to sell the page to prospective clients.
- Ensure that all of your page descriptions are different and relevant to the page content.
- The Keywords Meta content is not required. You can use it if you wish but do not make the common mistake of thinking that it will make any difference to your ranking position.
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