Your content management system or blogging platform provides “page templates” (standard formats for articles). These can include “meta” tags: labels that specify important context such as keywords, or perhaps a text description of what the page offers. This information is generally easy for search engine spiders to see, but not immediately visible to your site visitors. There are smart ways to use these tools, as well as not-so-smart ways.
- Be careful with keywords. Keywords count, but they are only one aspect of an SEO strategy – and recently they’ve become less important. Many content management systems, including some blogging tools, allow you to designate keywords or select them from a list. In other cases, you’ll have to do it by hand with a little bit of HTML coding. Carefully consider which five or so to include in your template throughout your site. (For example, “LocalCinc, news, politics, sports, entertainment …”). Then, consider whether to add more words on specific pages from your story headlines or other key parts of your pages. Don’t “keyword pack.” Search engines often think that when you load up a template with more than a dozen keywords you’re trying to trick it. They may retaliate and bump your pages down — or off — their listings.
- Include a good site description meta tag. The site description part of your template should include plain-language keywords from your site – ones that can be read by someone who might encounter your site through a search engine.
- Don’t sweat every tag. There are a number of other less-straightforward tags that can do things like try to tell a search engine to reindex the page, or tell Google how to cache your site. They may or may not work, and aren’t worth much effort.