Search Engine Optimization - updating your keywords and page descriptions
Lloyd from the Product team has an idea for you that may help your site rank higher in those all important search engine results - Rochelle.
Once you have a website with good content and design, it’s time for you to think about how to let people know about it. And in the online world, that means letting search engines know about it.
You can raise your profile with search engines in a number of ways, including submitting your site address to them, listing it in one or more online directories or having people you know create links to it. But there’s simpler way to help make your site show up in relevant search results just by making a few simple additions to your “Meta tag” field using SiteBuilder or SiteBuilder Lite.
Search engines regularly scour the net for new and updated sites, and one of the characteristics of a site they look for in their search are keywords used in the site’s “Meta tags”. Meta tags live under the surface of websites where they can’t be seen by visitors, but they assist search engines in classifying a website. And they’re very easy to add to your site.
In SiteBuilder Lite, click on the Page Info button that can be found near the top-right corner. You will find entry fields for ‘Page Title’, ‘Description’ and ‘Keywords’.
When choosing keywords and descriptions, please consider the following points:
o Think about what keywords you want associated with your site.
o Use the best keywords in your Page Title and Description.
o Place the words most associated with your site first.
In SiteBuilder, you can add or edit your Meta tags by clicking on Format from the menu, and then selecting Page Properties.
When you select Meta Tags under your Page Properties as shown below, you will find the entry fields for Description and Keywords. When you’re done, you can apply your changes to every open page in your site by clicking the Apply To All button.
Give the search engines some time to do their indexing, and you should start to see your website showing up higher in the results pages when your keywords are entered. Happy Online Marketing!
========== Important Added Information ==========
Please remember that search engines like to see Meta tags that are specific to the page on which they’re used. For that reason, the “Apply to All” feature may be most useful when you’re first setting up your site and you have key words that you’d like to apply to all the pages on it. Using it early also means there’s less of a chance that you’ll accidentally overwrite any key words already there. After you’ve used it, however, you’ll want to customize each page individually to make sure each page is described uniquely.
January 7, 2008 at 1:37 pm
While I love the fact that Homestead is working to help members via the Blog I can’t in good conscious not holler WHOA! when something comes along that in my opinion is going to hurt member sites rather than help them.
Using the Apply to All option can be a Seach Engine killer and it’s the one option I wish Homestead would remove. We constantly tell members on the Homestead Connection Forum - Don’ use the Apply to All if you are serious about optimizing for the Search Engines.
Search Engines look for unique metas and an across-the-board set of meta tags could be considered duplicate content by the SE’s. Each important page in the site should ’stand alone’ in terms of meta tags and those tags should reflect the theme of the page. The key words should be limited to the important phrases or key words found ON THE PAGE.
I encourage all Homestead members to come join the Forum for more info on Search Engine Optimization and Site Design.
Thanks Lloyd for the useable info on adding metas and I’m sure the design team will give consideration to removing that Add to All option since Homestead is always seeking more and better ways to help their customers build quality web sites.
Keep on Webbin’
Susanmj
Homestead Connection Forum
January 7, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I read this newest post and thoroughly agree that the title and meta description be optimized to produce the best result in the search process. Every page in a web site should be optimized for the most bang for the buck and each page should always have their own unique and distinct meta tags.
However, I take exception to the “add to all” option in the Site Builder as it produces meta tags that mirror each other and are simply a quick way of destroying a sites complete optimization.
If the search engines find this situation (duplicate metas) they will simply ignore any page beyond the index because the pages will be deemed duplicates – so essentially the “add to all” button has wasted any chance for individual pages being optimized or benefiting the site.
This is a Site Builder option that should be eliminated for the sake of people who are working hard to create a good site and get it ranked in generic searches.
January 7, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Anyone who has ever spent any amount of time actually reading and learning about SEO knows that duplicate meta’s will not help get better search engine result placement. In fact it could harm a web site’s search results.
Having good meta tags means having unique descriptions from page to page and using only keywords which can be found within the pages content. I feel that Homestead is doing a great dis-service to their uninformed users by instructing them to use the “apply to all” feature.
January 7, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Is there is a limit on the number of keywords and keyword that can be included in the meta-tag area?
January 7, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Thanks Susan, Judith and Richie, those are great points. We do think the “apply to all” is a useful shortcut for building a site, but you’re right, we need to be more clear that specific, unique descriptions and keywords are important for each page on any site. Now that we see that some of our more seasoned members have this concern about the “apply to all” feature, we’re going to be taking another look at it so we can help keep people out of trouble. Many thanks for your comments and ideas!
January 7, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Rochelle, thank you for taking notice of the posts regarding the “Apply to All” option. This is actually something I’ve discussed with a couple of the product team members before - in fact I even sent access to a book that Judy and I wrote to one of the team. The book is SEO Building Blocks and was written to help Homestead members with search engine optimization because there are some differences in optimizing a WYSIWYG site and a site created with Dreamweaver, Front Page, etc. The hope was that it would give Homesteaders a leg up in optimizing their sites and if Homestead were to eliminate the “Apply To All” that would be a huge step in the right direction.
Thanks for putting this on the “We Need to Revisit This Option” board. We’ll look forward to a positive change.
Regards,
Susanmj
Homestead Connection Forum
January 8, 2008 at 8:41 am
Thanks Rochelle!
February 6, 2008 at 10:08 am
This is also one of the tools that I just automatically ignore for the same reason listed.
I would like to see some more quick site templates with cast shadow design . Any chance of that ?
May 8, 2008 at 11:37 am
I am trying to make a form per your instructions, and mine doesn’t bounce from box to box with the tab button. How do you make it do this? Thanks for your help.