I’ve finished coding into the online form some new search engine optimisation options. These are titled “Meta Title” and “Meta Description”. To understand these go to www.google.co.uk and do a search for anything at all. The “meta title” tag is what appears in blue, and the “meta description” is what appears in black underneath it.

These tags are very important if you are concerned with how Google will find your site. Imagine you are one of your potential customers. What would you type into Google to find your site? It’s a tough question but worth thinking about. For example, in my case rather than have a Meta Title of “John Picton takes pictures of lots of nice places” I may instead have “Photographer in Northumberland and North East England, John Picton . . . . etc” which gives Google far more relevant keywords and phrases to get hold of. This means that if somebody does a Google search for “Photographer in Northumberland” I may have a chance of being somewhere in the top 3 pages.

Consider writing your Meta tags for two audiences – humans and search engines! It has to make sense to humans but also include the phrases that you want your site to be listed under when searched. As a rule, make your Meta Titles between 15 – 20 words and your descriptions between 30 – 40 words. Any keywords placed near the beginning of the sentence will in theory be seen as being more important to Google, so get those important keywords in early on.

Feel free to add a comment to this post if you want any additional advice.