Basics of search engine optimisation – Part Three – Meta Content

Meta Content describes the contents of a Web page. It’s not visible on the web page (it’s in the programming code in the background) but is seen by search engines. You can only see meta content if you look at the programming code for your web pages or use an editor to build your web pages.

Meta Content was first created to “make sense” of the growing number of web pages that appeared on the Internet.

Meta Content (often called Meta Tags) often appears in search engine results, so making sure that your Meta Descriptions are relevant and well written will help to ensure that people will click on your web page listing in the search engines.
Search engines are placing less importance on Meta Keywords than in the past, however it‘s still important to provide meaningful descriptions and keywords. All Meta descriptions and keywords should be unique and apply to a specific web page.

Here are some guidelines to what you should look at – they will help you to write Meta content that the search engines will understand and use effectively.

Description – Use 15-20 words maximum, starting with several of your important keywords. Try to make the description as compelling and as relevant as possible for people who may look at your website.

<META content=“Builder Stevenage,builders in stevenage,stevenage builders” name=keywords>

Meta Keywords Tag – List your keywords up to a maximum of 30 words. Use keywords that are relevant to the page, with or without commas. Try not to use the same keyword more than twice.

<META content=“Lee Builders – Stevenage – home extensions, loft conversions and general building” name=description>

 

Google’s “Future Of Search”

Search Engine Land published details of Google Research Director Peter Norvig’s interview with MIT Technology Review today. It proves very interesting reading – while nothing is really new it gives us an insight into what Google are working on and what possible future products may be appearing.

Google seems to be focusing on both machine translation and a speech project. Translation and speech has gone from one or two people working on small projects to live systems . Google are looking at speech technology that could serve as an interface for phones and also index audio text.

From Peter’s interview Google seems to accept that some people are more comfortable using voice interfaces and are more likely to interact this way. See below.

“One of the things we’re looking at is finding ways to get the user more involved, to have them tell us more of what they want. People type the query “map,” and then they get upset if it’s not the map they were thinking of. So, people may be willing to talk more than type. Or maybe they’re willing to take a suggestion if we offer something that they didn’t type a query for, but is related.”

Google Suggest

Google Suggest is a pretty cool tool which is completely free – As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you’re typing and offers suggestions in real time.

For example, if you type “bass,” Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include “bass fishing” or “bass guitar.” Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like “prog,” Google Suggest might offer you refinements like “programming,” “programming languages,” “progesterone,” or “progressive.”

You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse.

Basics of search engine optimisation – Part Two – Titles

Write descriptive page titles

By making your page titles simple, yet descriptive and relevant, you make it easier for search engines to know what each page is about, and people scanning through the search engine results can quickly determine whether your web site contains what they are looking for.

The page title is also what is used to link to your site from search result listings.

The Page Title is held in the programming code on your web page – it may seem daunting when you first look at the programming code but the truth is that it’s quite simple – the Title is what the search engine looks at first to decide what your web page is all about

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>For a builder in Stevenage come to Lee Construction.</TITLE>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="Builder Stevenage,builders in stevenage,stevenage builders" name=keywords>
<META content="new builds, extensions,  garages,  garden walls" name=description><!-- StyleSheetStart-->

<LINK href="includes/style3.css" type=text/css rel=stylesheet><!-- StyleSheetEnd--></HEAD>

Because of this, the Title is one of the most important elements on a page.

When it comes to the order of the text, I’ve found that the following works well for your Title:

Service or Products | Site or company name

For a builder in Stevenage come to Lee Construction.

Whatever you do, don’t use the same title text for all documents. Doing so will make it much harder for search engines, people browsing through search results, and site visitors to quickly find out what the document is about.

Basics of search engine optimisation

I’m often contacted by Customerstreet clients asking for practical advice and help regarding search engine positioning optimisation (how to make your website appear more attractive to the search engines and to help to improve it’s position in the search engine results).

Over the years I’ve worked on many large web sites and I’d like to share what I have done to achieve very good search engine rankings for many sites over the years.

Let’s start with the truth – no one can guarantee the number one position on the search engines – not on Google, not on Yahoo or Microsoft Live. It’s up to the search engines to decide whether a site is relevant enough for a search to be the number one choice.

What you can do however is make your site more accessible to the search engines and to your visitors, improving your chances of being found for different keywords.

The guidelines I’m describing here are a basic level of search engine optimisation – they are what every single website should have (but sadly very few do).

If you have a website try these guidelines first, and if you’re still not getting the results you want, you may want to look into getting more help.

Welcome

Welcome to Customerstreet’s search engine optimisation blog. My name is Adrian Berry and I work as search manager for Customerstreet – one of the UK’s leading new media advertising services.

With nearly a decade’s experience in search engine optimisation (SEO) and online marketing I felt it was time that I passed some of my knowledge on to Customerstreet customers.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be explaining SEO in more detail, how it’s important to your business and why it needs to be done. I’ll explain the basics of SEO in simple terms so there’s no need to worry about technical terms and confusing diagrams.

More importantly I’ll explain how you can improve your position in the search engine listings and how you can improve the number of people that contact you via your website.