As many of you may be familiar with, meta tags are hidden bits of information on your site that help let search engines know what your site is all about. The main two types of meta tags are your meta-description and your meta-keywords.
Your meta-description tag is a sentence or two that tells search engines in plain English what your page is about. This meta tag is what will show up in search engine results below your page title (see image), so it’s important to be clear without being too wordy. Google shows the first 156 characters of your meta-description tag in their search results, so be sure to keep your description tag brief and to the point.
Your meta-keywords tag on the other hand is a collection of words and phrases that describe your page. Generally these are the terms you hope to be placed for in your search engine rankings. Many search engines don’t look at these anymore, so these tend to be less important than your meta-description tag, but they may still have value in some ranking. Some search engines only look at the first 255 characters of this tag, so it’s generally a good idea to keep your list of keywords within that limit.
These two are the most common meta-tags used on site pages. Combined with the title name and file name you give your page, your page headings, and of course, your CONTENT, these help search engines determine where and how to rank your site in search results. Meta tags help reinforce the content found in the headings and the overall body of your page, and can play role in search engine ranking.
An important note on meta-descriptions from Google’s Webmaster Tools:
While accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won’t impact your ranking within search results. We frequently prefer to display meta descriptions of pages (when available) because it gives users a clear idea of the URL’s content. This directs them to good results faster and reduces the click-and-backtrack behavior that frustrates visitors and inflates web traffic metrics.
So, though meta-descriptions help provide an accurate description of your site’s content, it will not help improve your search rankings. It’s also important to note that when you install WordPress, meta-tag data is NOT included by default. Instead, you’ll have to add meta-descriptions manually through the use of WordPress plugins. Mainly, plugins like: HeadSpace2 SEO and the All-in-One SEO Pack.
With the HeadSpace2 SEO plugin, you can configure meta-data for:
- Posts
- Pages
- Categories
- Home page
- Author pages
- Search pages
- 404 page
Additionally, the All-In-One SEO Pack will generate meta descriptions automatically and/or you have the option to override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want. Additionally, if you’re using dsIDXpress (our WordPress plugin), plugins like the All-In-One SEO Pack will add the appropriate description to your Listing Details pages – the descriptions are inherited from the property descriptions as they are entered in the MLS.
So there you have it, a quick and easy way to edit your meta-descriptions and help provide an accurate description of your site’s content!
Make sure to mention your keywords in a description that is discussed on the page that you have created. Don’t go overboard with mentioning your city more than three times like: Long Beach condos, Long Beach homes, Long Beach, Long Beach…it looks spammy. Focus your descriptions for the page of content you have created and think of your potential internet visitor that viewing it on a search engine page.
Re: “Focus your descriptions for the page of content you have created and think of your potential internet visitor that viewing it on a search engine page.”
Well said Jay!
I just learn things from special SEO people
Ah, well there you go. Nice to have friends who know their way around SEO 🙂
I’ve never played around with the SEO plugins mentioned in the article, but I really like the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin:
http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/
If people are looking for options, I’d add it to the list for consideration.
I agree Brian, probably the best of the three, Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin is excellent. I’ve used all three, AIOSEO is really good for someone who’s just getting into tweaking their settings.
Hum – mixed feelings – for example I can google dozens of addresses (looking for one url or brokerage at a time) and there could be NO results for the idx listing page that fits that address YET I’ll see several other idx page results which is odd (for same broker)… So I google one address – it doesn’t show up – yet 4 others from that broker do???
Then I realized that Googles using the descriptions from other listings when it indexes diverse solutions idx listing pages. My point is that if google sees info in the title about one listing then in the description it’s talking about another listing I don’t think your seo is as high for that listing b/c google does not know what your trying to focus on. Therefore even though people say meta data doesn’t matter – does this not prove it does greatly? It seems like google is happy to rank you but DID NOT FOR that particular listing b/c 4 other pages are saying that it’s page is about that listing therefore taking credit away from the actual page you wanted indexed for that term.
Proof: For an example go google “5607 shoalwood” without quotations – I did my search from katy tx so others results might be a bit different but thats neither here nor there…. So, now search the top 100 listings for “skyrealtyaustin” (which is a spotlight site for ds) and you’ll see THAT IDX LISTING PAGE DOES NOT COME UP for that address – yet what’s odd is that 4 OTHER LISTINGS / PAGES DO COME UP FOR sky realty……. Why? I think it’s because google is using the DESCRIPTION (meta) of the 5607 shoalwood home in the 4 other listing pages results that are about totally different listings – which also means the descriptions of those homes are incorrect as well……… I am no expert so I’m not trying to hate – just trying to figure out how I can make this work most effectively for a site because I really really want to use your service.Also – w/ that plugin will it populate keyword field too in addition to description??
also i saw the part about how the two plugins can allow you to automatically generate meta data – so to clarify, if using all in one w/ dsidx i can have it dynamically or automatically output meta that includes the description of that individual home and I can have keyphrases auto generated w/ content from THAT listing too? Is it all or nothing like can I tell the meta keyphrases that I automatically want them to be mls #, street address, and subdivision name and have those three keywords be auto created for each idx listing page?
Thanks so much – love ya’lls product and price point!
Hum – mixed feelings – for example I can google dozens of addresses (looking for one url or brokerage at a time) and there could be NO results for the idx listing page that fits that address YET I’ll see several other idx page results which is odd (for same broker)… So I google one address – it doesn’t show up – yet 4 others from that broker do???
Then I realized that Googles using the descriptions from other listings when it indexes diverse solutions idx listing pages. My point is that if google sees info in the title about one listing then in the description it’s talking about another listing I don’t think your seo is as high for that listing b/c google does not know what your trying to focus on. Therefore even though people say meta data doesn’t matter – does this not prove it does greatly? It seems like google is happy to rank you but DID NOT FOR that particular listing b/c 4 other pages are saying that it’s page is about that listing therefore taking credit away from the actual page you wanted indexed for that term.
Proof: For an example go google “5607 shoalwood” without quotations – I did my search from katy tx so others results might be a bit different but thats neither here nor there…. So, now search the top 100 listings for “skyrealtyaustin” (which is a spotlight site for ds) and you’ll see THAT IDX LISTING PAGE DOES NOT COME UP for that address – yet what’s odd is that 4 OTHER LISTINGS / PAGES DO COME UP FOR sky realty……. Why? I think it’s because google is using the DESCRIPTION (meta) of the 5607 shoalwood home in the 4 other listing pages results that are about totally different listings – which also means the descriptions of those homes are incorrect as well……… I am no expert so I’m not trying to hate – just trying to figure out how I can make this work most effectively for a site because I really really want to use your service.Also – w/ that plugin will it populate keyword field too in addition to description??
also i saw the part about how the two plugins can allow you to automatically generate meta data – so to clarify, if using all in one w/ dsidx i can have it dynamically or automatically output meta that includes the description of that individual home and I can have keyphrases auto generated w/ content from THAT listing too? Is it all or nothing like can I tell the meta keyphrases that I automatically want them to be mls #, street address, and subdivision name and have those three keywords be auto created for each idx listing page?
Thanks so much – love ya’lls product and price point!