SEO Best Practices: Page Titles, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords
August 20, 2009 by
Adam
Filed under
SEO & Rank, Website Traffic, Websites
When it comes to onsite optimization, you need to put on your SEO marketing hat. The following guidelines show you how to create optimized page titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords. Don’t forget quality body copy! If you follow these specific guidelines, you’ll soar to #1 in Google in no time!
A page title holds greater weight over a meta description. Meta keywords aren’t as important as they used to be in the search engines. Keywords should be used sparingly throughout the body copy. Remember these SEO best practices– especially if you want to rank high and get thousands of links.
Page Titles
According to SEO experts, page titles are the MOST important element when it comes to SEO. Writing a dynamic page title can be difficult. It has to LOOK attractive so people will click on your listing (AND you need to include keywords too!) A compelling title needs to use 65 characters or less. Remember not to keyword stuff – this is considered an unethical black hat technique and you’ll either get bumped out of the search engines or lose ranking.
Example of a Good Title:
Los Angeles Sporting Goods – We HAVE What You Need – Kicks Soccer Store
Meta Description
Meta descriptions need to capture keywords but it also needs to look appealing (just like the page title). You only have 160 characters so be creative and make it sound compelling. If you go over 160 characters, your listing will be truncated and ellipsis (…) will appear. This is a “no-no” in SEO because search engines don’t like ellipsis – it will decrease your click-through rate (CTR).
Example of a Good Description:
The Biggest Selection on Sporting Goods in the Los Angeles Area. 50% off and FREE Delivery on All Sporting Goods When You Shop Online. Click Here to Order NOW!
Use active words that entice your visitors and make them WANT to choose and click on your listing. Make sure to include a call to action (“Click Here to Order Now!”) and capitalize the first letter of each word (increases CTR). Capitalize power words such as: FREE, NOW, TODAY, etc.
Meta Keywords
Meta keywords aren’t AS important as they once were in SEO. It’s not a complete waste of time but Google doesn’t identify them anymore. It doesn’t hurt to add them but be careful how you use them.
Warning: Your competition is going to look at the keywords you use. Don’t make your keywords too obvious. Don’t put your relevant/high search volume keywords here either. If you do, your competition will steal them.
Don’t forget to add keywords to the body copy. If you only use keywords in your title, description and meta keywords (tags), it’ll be difficult for you to rank those keywords.
• Use keywords between 3-10 times (for each 600 words).
• Don’t keyword stuff – copy needs to make sense and look natural. WRITE for your site visitors NOT for search engines.
• Remember that you want to get incoming links. If your body copy sounds like nonsense, no one will link to your site and there goes your traffic!
• ALWAYS add VALUE and quality when you write body copy. Sound like an authority/expert in your field.
• Your ultimate goal: to be a resource where people find information. If you keep that in mind, you’ll get high rankings and many links. Poor content will never get you anywhere in SEO.
This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.
Ah, my last comment had some characters removed lol
Nice intro to SEO from Zeke, there are a couple of important things missed out however. Your page absolutely needs your keyword in the H1 tag and any image used as a header needs the alt and title tags included with suitable keywords (SEs can’t see pictures - yet)
Another great post by Zeke. It’s always important to get back to basics with SEO. Sometimes we make it more complicated than it has to be. Following the simple techniques listed above are a great starting place.
Thanks
Phil
I have a question about using a wordpress blog. I have the all in one SEO plugin for it. I also have a separate place to add a meta description, meta title and keywords. I am under the impression that the all in one SEO handles that for me and all I need to do is put the title of my post in, add the tags and not worry about the meta stuff. Is this correct?
Good post. I think it is important for people to realize the importance of page title for SEO. Its all too common to see sites that either have a single page title stuck at all the pages of the site which is a big NO in my opinion
Yup! I truly agree with you. Google doesn’t look anymore at the meta description of a page but a good description does help in the conversion of a potential buyer/viewer. Anyways, I think Yahoo still looks into the meta description but I dont know what will happen now since they have merged technology with Bing.
Thanks for the great info - I am a relative newbie to the Internet Marketing realm and this post has some great advice. Better yet, considering SEO can be extremely complicated, this post shows things that you can do so it’s not overwhelming.
Paul
Thank you for this information. I didn’t realize I could only use 160 characters in my media description. I’m kinda new to the whole SEO thing and this information that will really help me moving forward.
Yahoo has changed the way it use to rank websites. Now, url plays the import part in ranking. If keyword comes in the url then it will most likely to go on top. if you dot com does not contains the keyword then you need to add another webpage with the name of the keyword. You will see the amazing results in a month.
Very Helpful But I’ll Be Damned If I’m Going To Capitalize Every Word Of My Meta Description. (A) I’m Not German And (B) It Looks Idiotic.
Yes, the description is an important factor for real searchers on the SEs but not really a big SEO opportunity. You should consider capitalizing keywords and any “selling” words in your description to attract buyers to your listing.
Totally disagree about ellipses (..) The whole description isn’t important for onpage seo, so if you run over the 160 limit, it doesn’t matter at all. For example, check out the Facebook description, that has (…)
You get slightly more (+20) characters in Bing and Yahoo will break and reduce any sentences in your description, so watch your syntax
Meta keywords are pretty much ignored these days, though there is evidence Bing still takes notice of them — I suppose it only takes a few minutes, so you may as well do it.
Hey Zeke,
I’m so pleased that I found this guest post of yours.
There’s some great information here. Infromation that I’m going to instigate straight away.
I’ve always known how important keywords are, but wasn’t aware of all these crucial criteria concerning page titles and meta tags etc.
Very helpful - much appreciated.
Andrew.
I am using post title as page title & the beginning content of the post as page description.
This is *not* a “good example” of the usage of a title element.
Los Angeles Sporting Goods – We HAVE What You Need – Kicks Soccer Store
Using your company name in the title element is a waste of the most valuable real estate on your web pages. If you simply must, put it to the right, better yet, not at all. The company name will get picked up from the pages.
Great post for SEO and beginners
Thanks for the great info - I am a relative newbie to the Internet Marketing realm and this post has some great advice.
There are some great seo friendly blog themes around if all you’re after is a blog. Wordpress Direct are a great service, and they have a free account for you to play around with and see if it’s right for you.
I’ve found that all the above that’s been mentioned has been taken care of for me, so the process is automated and I don’t have to think about it.
SEO can be complex, but mastery can be worth it.
“Using your company name in the title element is a waste of the most valuable real estate on your web pages. If you simply must, put it to the right, better yet, not at all. The company name will get picked up from the pages.”
Fully agree. I changed a clients title as per there request.
Example:
i went from: “t-tops and polling platforms abyss marine has what you need….”
to: “abyss marine leader in t-top and polling platform installation….”
And there top keywords in google went from “t-tops, polling platforms, ect. to “Abyss, Marine, leader, ect ect..”
So i would avoid putting the company name in the first three words of the title unless the name has keyword in it .
Example: TAMPA LAWN and GARDEN center is your 1 stop place for ……..
Sorry for double post (had an after thought)
Also avoid using generic page names
Example: Aboutus.html
instead use a more seo friendly About_marine_welding_tampa.html
I know it seems a bit much but it does help because page names are looked at too for keywords
google search “New_page_1.html port richey florida” and youll see it highlights new_page_1.html as a keyword
Thanks for the very good and useful info, We hope to use the info soon, When we do our relaunch of our new website. Thanks again.
Hello Adam,
Sadly very little newbies know how to successfully achieve on page SEO. You are right about the META keywords, they aren’t as important as what they used to be, and the TITLE is becoming more of a dominant feature that the engines are looking for these days.
Apart from that, nice article!
Hi Adam,
Thanks for the great info, I got lot of new ideas, I will try those and get back to you soon.
Very insightful post indeed. Just don’t focus to much on pleasing the Google Bots and abandoning your usability.
Some great tips. Regarding meta descriptions, a good one can really increase your site visits bigtime. A recently saw a huge boost, on a site of mine, just by making the meta desc. more attractive and helpful.