Humans look at websites and read words and pictures. Search engines index websites based on text, although Google is cataloging and capturing data that helps them analyze the content of pictures as well.
(Side note: If you want to see something cool, if you’ve ever used Google Images to find a picture of something on the web, you can now do a reverse search and find all the places it appears on the web. Click here for more about Google Images)
Behind the scenes and buried in the code that drives your website, each page of your website should contain meta titles and descriptions.
The search engine “bots” that crawl over the internet will read the title and description of the page and index it accordingly. If these titles and descriptions are also written using keywords that people are using to search for the kind of information or service that you’re offering, then your site will appear organically in the top few pages of the search engine rankings.
With that having been said, here are five things to know about meta and simple tips to use them effectively.
- Meta titles should be 70 characters. Make sure that you convey the most accurate description about what the page is about. This can be Customs brokerage, freight forwarding, technology services, product offerings, consulting…whatever.
- Meta descriptions should be 156 characters. Think of this like a Haiku meets a limerick; consider how you are going to structure the description, again keeping in mind what you want the page to be found for, such as your company’s name, the service being described on the page and using keywords that reflect the searches that people are making.
- Meta should be different for each page of your site. If no two pages of the site are identical in content, then they shouldn’t be identical in their meta; why confuse Google, Yahoo or Bing who are trying to make your page findable?
- Professional tools exist to drive this process. Position : Global uses a variety of subscription-based sites that aggregate search engine data based on country, terms, competitive ranking and other factors. Ask us for more information.
- Insure the language on the page is in alignment with the meta titles and descriptions. The more aligned the words, the more “points” search engines award it because the content is relevant.
Whether your site is written in a platform such as WordPress or is straight HTML, there are ways to embed meta on each page. Use it to your benefit; it’s an easy way to let your site work for you.