The Importance of Meta Tags
Meta tags are an important part of the web programming process. In this first part of the series, we are going to take a look at some of the different tags you should be using in your code.
First, it's important to understand what meta tags are. They are elements that are used to provide metadata about a web page. These tags are placed in the [head] part of the code. These elements are used to specify keywords, page description, authorship, robot/crawler instructions, etc. These tags are important to help search engines crawl your site and therefore help in search engine ranking.
Meta Description Tag
This is a very important tag and shouldn't be left out of your code. It is used to provide the search engines with a short and concise description of that particular page. Yes, that means that each page of the site should have a different description. That will help immensely with your page ranking. This description should generally be kept to about 160 characters. With the advent of Twitter, it shouldn't be hard to come up with a page description in the same amount of space it takes you to tweet about your breakfast. Look at the image below. This is a screen print of the description that is displayed when you search for my site, Flying Tomato Design. You'll note that the description for the home page is too long - it gets cut off. So, I need to change that. However, you'll notice that the description tag for the contact page is a great length.
Meta Keywords Tag
The keywords tag used to be vital to a website. Originally, it was intended as a way to tell search engines the main concept of your site with specific words. However, it didn't take long for web developers to figure out that they could manipulate the search results. Eventually, you would search for "giraffes" and somehow you'd come up with a porn site. It was because people were putting high ranking keywords in their code whether or not the content actually supported it. Today, search engine companies don't really use keywords. However, Yahoo! does put some sort of emphasis on it still.
Meta Robots Tag
This tag tells the search engines whether or not it should follow the links appearing on that page. If you already have a [robots.txt] file, there's no need for this tag. Here are the common commands used with the Meta Robots Tag:
- noindex: this tells the spider not to index that page
- follow: tells the spider to follow the links on that page and index them
- nofollow: tells the spider to not follow the links on the page, but index the page
Other Tags
Here's a list of other tags to use in your code. These are pretty self-explanatory so I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on these.
- <meta name="Copyright" content="Copyright Flying Tomato Design: 2007-2009" />
- <meta name="Author" content="Flying Tomato Design" />
- <meta name="Email" content="office@flyingtomatodesign.com" />
- <meta name="Charset" content="UTF-8" />
- <meta name="Distribution" content="Global" />
- <meta name="Rating" content="General" />
- <meta name="Revisit After" content="1 Day" />
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, most Meta Tags are still important today. They help with your search engine ranking and placement. However, other tags, such as the Keywords tag isn't so useful any more. In our next post, we'll look closer at the Keywords Tag in more detail; why it was so great to begin with, and what search engines do with it now.
Small Business Online Advertising
Our last blog was about the cost of doing business. I suppose it would've been more appropriate to title it the "Cost of not advertising with your website". However, the message is clear; if you want to get exposure for your business, you can't rely on the old standards (only) to get it done. Whether you like it or not, you need to roll with the times.
So what does that mean? Well, if you want to reach out to new audiences online, it will take almost a brute force attack at all the mediums to get it done. That means riding the social networking train, using ad words and banner ads, having a blog that you update regularly, maybe even use an email newsletter where you can send virtual coupons to your readers.
Social Networking
Social networking, in my opinion is kind of a misnomer. I mean, you're not out handing business cards out to people and making contacts the "old fashioned" way. It's not sitting at the bar and BSing with the guy next to you. Rather, you're a part of networks like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIN, StumbleUpon, Last.FM, etc. Involvement in the various social networks will be varied from person to person. For example, you might use MySpace just for personal contacts and Facebook for business connections. Personally, I don't use MySpace. I deleted my profile some time ago. I use my Facebook to connect with friends both new and old. However, I also have created a page for my business that I use to communicate with "fans" (blog updates, new projects, etc). I use LinkedIN to connect with other professionals in the design world. Obviously, you want to be cautious with what you share and with whom. Once you put your info out there, it's there for literally EVERYONE to see. So be wise about it.
AdWords
AdWords (google, Yahoo, etc) are a good idea to target specific keyword searches. However, it can be difficult to get it figured out and do it right. Google AdWords is particularly baffling; you almost need a doctorate to be successful with it. The basic premise of it is that you create an ad that targets certain keywords. Then the ads show up when someone searches for that word. You pay for the ad each time someone clicks on it. Depending on the keyword, you could end up paying through the nose for it. So you have to be smart about what words/segments you target. Otherwise you end up throwing out good money with no results to show for it.
Banner Ads
Personally, I'm not sold on the effectiveness of banners as a form of advertising. You'll notice that I have a banner on the home page of this blog. However, it's used to advertise my business. I don't really like ads, but I also realize that they are a necessary evil. They do help with backlinks and could help bring in a little extra source of money. I think there's a middle ground where there's an acceptable compromise between no ads and MySpace. Once they start to get too numerous, annoying, or affecting your overall web browsing experience, I think you've gone too far. So, this is another area where wisdom and caution are to be taken. You don't want to annoy your visitors so much that they bail as soon as they've shown up.
Bloging
Writing a blog can be tricky. You have to decide what you're going to write about and how it pertains to your business. For example, if you have a gym, you want to blog about fitness, health, weight lifting, even nutrition. That way, not does your blog make sense with your type of business, but your backlinks and trackbacks will be so much more meaningful since it pertains to your business overall. That's what I've tried to do with this blog. I've tried to write articles that only deal with website design, development, search engine optimization, etc. Obviously this post and the other about small business advertising kind of break out of that. However, even with those two outlyers, there is a running theme of maximizing your presence online with your website. Let's put it this way; you wouldn't expect a web design company to have a blog about knitting, would you?
Newsletter
This is another one of those things that I doubt it's effectiveness. Sure, I've signed up for some email blasts (NewEgg, Buy.com, World Wildlife Federation, One.org), but frankly I don't read the emails 75% of the time. Either I'm too busy or just don't feel like taking the two minutes to read it. So, I figure everyone else out there must feel the same way about it as me. However, at Christmas time, I took a gamble and tried a newsletter of sorts. I sent out a "Holiay" card with a couple different coupons. One was for existing clients to get a discount on their next redesign. The other was a referral bonus, which was dependent on the person referred signing a new contract. At the time of this writing, I have yet to have anyone redeem one of those coupons. Maybe it was my offer, maybe it was my audience, but I haven't seen any return for the effort. In business, ROI is key. You need to make sure that you're getting your money's worth and frankly, I see more benefit with the influx of visitors to this blog than I have with that newsletter. With the changing landscape of the internet and social interaction, I think that the newsletter is quickly being replaced by other, more convenient and on-demand means.
SEO part Deux
My last blog about SEO was kind of a high level overview. This time I want to touch on one very important aspect of it.
One major key to SEO is the text. It's not enough to rely on keywords and other [meta] tags. Granted, they still help to a degree. However, over the last few years, the search engine companies have been moving more towards organic* searches.
*An organic search result is one that offers up a list of sites based on the overall relevance to the search word or phrase.
So, since the search engine ranks sites based off of keyword relevance, it's vital to pepper your site with the keywords that you want to target. However, you have to be careful that it's done in such a way that you don't look like an idiot because you've used your keyword(s) too many times. You also don't want to do some of those "black hat" tactics that we mentioned in the previous post (i.e. hiding keywords out of the main field of the site and using the background color as the font color to mask them).
You also want those keywords show up on the other pages of your site and not just the home page. By way of a side tangent; you want to put a unique description (meta name="Description" content="lobster bisque...yada, yada, yada") on each of the pages of your site. That way, they come up as separate listings or at least as sublistings to your site. It's also beneficial since each page has the target keywords and with different descriptions, it will help your page ranking.
Another good thing to do is use the ALT image tag. Firstly, it's just plain kind. The blind rely on web browsers that read the text of the code back to them. So, if you have an image without a description, the screen reader skips over it. It's vital that you provide as positive an experience as you can to all your visitors. Secondly, those descriptions must be appropriate to the photo. For example, if you have a photo of a Hawaiian sunset, you're not going to put your copyright as the ALT text. You'd label it something like "A relaxing day on the beach". Now, let's take it a step further and say that your keyword is "Corona" - as in that beautifully golden summertime beverage (BRB... excuses self to grab a cold beer)............................. Okay. So we're going to take this a step further; maybe you want to make this your description: "A relaxing day on the beach enjoying the Hawaiian sunset with a Corona and a lime." See in that example, not only is there a great description of the picture, but you've also used your target keyword in a unique way. Yes. That will help with your rankings, too.
However you have to remember that it all takes time. I mentioned that in the last SEO post and I'll mention it in subsequent ones. There's no "magic bullet" to getting SEO "right". However, there are a number of factors that when done properly will yield results.
In our next SEO post, we'll look at backlinking and social networking and how it affects your page rankings in organic searches.
What the hell is SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization "is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website or web page... from search engines via "natural" or unpaid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing which may deal with paid inclusion. [source... Wikipedia]
Wow. That's a mouthful. The essence of it is that your webmaster/designer/programmer, etc should be using certain tools to optimize your site for the best rankings possible. A few years ago when the interwebs was really getting popular (i.e. tech bubble), all it took to optimize a site was to have keywords in your meta tags. Now, you have to have alternate descriptions for all images (and they have to be unique), your keywords are still okay, but they should be unique to the topic of each page of your site, you should also have your keywords that you want to target peppered throughout the readable text on the site (w/out getting spammy about it), you need to have links on other sites (blogs for example) that link back to your home page, and more recently, you need to be a part of the social networking buzz (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Technorati, etc). There's a lot that has to be done, and it all needs to be constantly updated. Because of everything that has to be done now to optimize it, no one should be promising or otherwise guaranteeing that your site will land on the first page within a certain period of time. At minimum, it takes 3-6 months. Yet by personal example, my company's site "Flying Tomato Design" doesn't show up even in the first 10 pages of the Google search and we've been around for three years. So, it's vital that the consumer understands that proper SEO is a process that won't yield immediate results. So with all that said, let's take a minute to understand what bad SEO is.
Bad SEO. Go lay down.
Bad SEO techniques, or Black Hat SEO are attempts to improve your site rankings by doing things that are considered unacceptable by search engines. Or, there could be some sort of deception involved. One bad technique is hiding text on the page. So for example, let's say that you have a black website that is sized 800x600px (roughly the size of a 5"x7" picture). Some developers would create extra room outside the visible area and put text there in a black font. That extra text is then read by the search engine, but it's not normally caught unless you're looking for it.
Another bad technique is called cloaking. This is where a different page is displayed depending on if it is a human reaching it or a computer.
Now what? Well, if you're caught using such techniques, you could be penalized. For example, your site can be reduced in the rankings or eliminate your site from their database entirely. Such actions can be taken automatically via computer or by manual review. One great example (mentioned in the same Wikipedia article) harkens all the way back to February 2006 when Google removed both BMW Germany and Ricoh German for black hat SEO tactics. They quickly issued an apology and fixed the bad code and were restored to Google's good graces.
Good Boy, Seo.
So, we have an idea of what is bad practice. What are some of the good SEO behaviors? Firstly, this is called White Hat SEO. These are techniques that are obviously recommended as good design. White Hat SEO tends to result in a long lasting ROI while sites that use Black Hat SEO generally are shut down and/or altogether banned. It's kind of hard to pin down, though what these techniques are as the search engine companies are constantly evolving. However Google has a great article to help educate the layperson to the basics of SEO, what to expect from web design companies, and even some good questions to ask in your search for a good company.
As I said, though, the search engine companies are constantly evolving their algorithms. A good example of this recently is with Google. I read an article a few weeks ago on Gizmodo.com about how Google is changing things up. Unfortunately, I can't find the article right now, but the essence of it is that Google will start to change to index sites live. So, when you go out and search for "iPhone", it will index all sites that mention "iPhone" in real time. The way it's done now is on a 24 hour cycle at best. So in that environment, it's nearly impossible to fraud the system. However, it does make it harder on web developers to make sure that their client's content is up to date.
In short, SEO is an ever evolving game. As I mentioned above, it's not a science, but it sure as hell is complicated and it takes time for your site to get ranked high. That's not a cop-out. That's reality.
The shameless plug.
Now for a shameless plug; my company, Flying Tomato Design provides the following SEO services at this time (the list changes as the industry does):
- backlinking
- help you get your social networking setup and integrated with your site/blog
- alternate description tags for images
- specific keywords for each page of your site
- we won't serve as your text editor, however, we will look it over and if we can cram more keywords into your text, we'll make that suggestion
I hope you've found this brief read about SEO helpful. I do plan on more in depth articles to come!
