The subject of Search Engine Optimization is often shrouded in mystery and secrecy and if you talk to ten different SEOs, you’ll get about ten differing opinions on the importance of various techniques for optimizing a website, article, or blog.
Confusing advice only contributes to more confusion and does nothing to help you make concrete decisions about the actions necessary to start optimizing your presence on the web. Building backlinks is always great advice and should be one of your main efforts but what about on page optimization.
One of the most misunderstood and underestimated of SEO factors revolves around the importance of Meta Tags, and in particular Title and Description Meta Tags. I’m going to explain just why your Title and Description Tags are important and why you should be very careful when creating them.
Search Engine Marketing
When you preform a search in any search engine, the listings are displayed on a results page. The search term is evaluated according to a search engines algorithm which is always being second-guessed, nothing new there.
The algorithm is a moving target and determines the relevance of each page in the search engines index to any query. The search engine then returns and lists the results in a hierarchy, in other words – The Search Engine Ranks Each Listing.
Each party involved in this process has a vested interest in the results and they don’t always align, to some degree they are competing interests. Search Engines and Webmasters have each employ a different Marketing Strategy to accomplish their goals.
- Searchers
- Website Owners
- Search Engines
Searchers are the customers. People searching online want to find whatever product, service, or information they want quickly and easily. If I am trying to find something on the internet, I don’t care about the algorithm when I’m preforming a search, I care about the results displayed and I’m going to scan those listings to determine, for myself, which pages more closely satisfy my interest.
If you own a webpage, in any form, you want searchers to find your listing for purposes of monetization, ego, or to impart crucial information. As a webmaster, I care about how I can rank higher in the SERPs so I can get as much targeted traffic as possible so I can Make Money.
Search Engines and Directories want users so they can sell those users to advertisers. The better they are at attracting happy users, the easier it will be to attract and keep happy advertisers. They care about providing the most relevant list of webpages to the user so they will keep coming back. The more users that use my search engine, the more eyeballs and clicks I can sell to advertisers, so I can make more money.
The marketing each stakeholder uses to accomplish these goals is varied and the whole process has spawned a massive SEO Industry.
So that is basically the dynamic of the game being played online.
As I mentioned earlier, Link Popularity is a major factor in a search engines algorithm. If incoming links to your website mostly determine your rank, why then is the Title and Description Tag important.
They are important because:
- They are Displayed On The Search Engines Results Pages,
- They are the first information consumed when your page is crawled,
- They are the first information consumed when your page is viewed by a human,
- They are the Anchor Link in a listing, bookmark, blog roll link, etc…
Title and Description Meta Tags
I sometimes wonder about whether or not webmasters or even SEOs actually understand the full importance of the Title and Description Meta Tags. It appears to me that it’s just something many webmasters fill in to get out of the way!
So what should be the main considerations when building a your Meta Tags? Let’s deconstruct it and look at the listings returned for a broad search of – Make Money Online – above the fold .
Every SEO will tell you your Title and Description Tags should contain your main keyword and it should but that’s for the search engine. However, if you look at the listings above you’ll see that the keyword phrase “Make Money Online” is bolded in the Title and throughout the Description. That’s because it matches the search term.
If you want to be found for several search terms, keep this in mind as you build your Title and Description because the matches will be bolded. It’s no fluke that the search engine does this, and they do the same thing in the sponsored listings you see to the right and above the organic listings.
Bolding exact search terms will draw a persons eye to the listing.
You can and should plan to be found for more keyword phrases in your Title Tag and Description Tag, the more the better. Now I’m not suggesting your Title should be miles long to get in every long tail keyword phrase.
Your Description Meta Tag is going to max out around 150 characters so you have lots more room to get in the terms you want. If you know you’ve got 150 characters, say what you want to say before you run out of characters. The Description Tag is an awesome opportunity to seduce searchers.
In the example above there are some key search terms that are missed by some webmasters which could have made a big difference. Starting with a relevant long tail search term that includes many keywords on your page is the best way to accomplish this goal.
Have a look and try to identify which listing gets in more relevant search terms. I’d tell you but that would be cheating…
Your Title and Description is the Advertising for your page in the search engines results page. Make no mistake about this. It is the MOST IMPORTANT attribute of your whole effort and shouldn’t be just an afterthought when you’ve finished your pages content.
Ask yourself – Would you pay close attention to the Title and Description if it was an ad in the sponsored section? You know you would. Just because you don’t pay for it on a pay per click basis to Yahoo or Google doesn’t mean it’s not the same, it is the exact same dynamic except you have more room to promote.
A human searcher is going to decide on every click they make and they are going to do it quickly so your ad better be good or the best it can be.
In any ad campaign you set up in Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing, you will be trying to get clicks and you will tweak your ad to get more all the time. It’s called Split Testing and it’s an ongoing process that usually determines your success. Your Title and Description Tags are the same.
If you think of your Title and Description Meta Tags as advertising, you’ll be on the right track and you will get better results. Remember – when your page is listed in the SERPs, it’s the first impression a human gets of your page, it determines whether you get the click or not! Be sure to give it your best effort.
Stay Tuned
Jim
UPDATE
Since I posted on the topic of Meta Title Tags and Meta Description Tags I’ve been watching some of the keyword phrases used by people that end up here.
It might be a useful exercise to actually try to answer some of the questions that are apparent from the queries which I will list below. As more come in I’ll add them.
The questions are in no particular order.
- seo can the page title and description be the same?
- how does “yahoo” look at “meta description”
Yes! But why would you want them to be the same?
You can think of it like this – The meta title tag is the headline for the meta description tag but they are also 2 distinct categories of meta information.
You really want the title to be a headline for your topic which includes your main keyword or a long tail keyword phrase including several target keywords.
The meta description is an opportunity to add related target keywords which inform humans and search engines about the content of your post.
So… they can be the same but they shouldn’t be.
I don’t believe there is much of a difference in the way any search engine evaluates metadata with the exception of meta keywords – Google doesn’t place any weight to them and Yahoo has just announced they will no longer place importance on them either.
Yahoo says:
Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page.
And: How to Improve the Position of Your Website in Yahoo! Search Results
