Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Meta data is information embedded in the code
of the website that is not visible on the screen. However it plays
a huge role in Google's algorithm for website rankings.
There are two very important components in the metadata that
should always be completed - Title and
Description. The third component of meta data -
Keywords is not as important as this does not make much difference
in the rankings.
Titles are incredibly important. This is the
first indicator to Google's 'crawlers' about what your website is
all about. A short (50 - 66 characters) title should be entered
against every page in your website. Google truncates after 66
characters. The title displays in the top corner of your browser
AND in the Google search results - so is also useful to customers
who are looking for the most appropriate site to select.
Image 1: Title at the top of the browser
Image 2: Google search results for keyword "Skiing"
A meta description is the information about
your site that Google displays in the search results (In Image 2
this is the smaller black font). It should be around 150 characters
long, and be informative about what you are offering and compelling
to attract customers to your site.
To update your metadata in umbraco go to each page in turn and
select the 'Meta' Data' tab (see below). Make your changes and save
and publish in the normal way. It's that easy. It will take longer
to read this blog than to actually do it!
The next step is to be very patient. It will take some time for
the updates to show up on Google.
