Exhibit 26.8 URL, meta title and meta description as they appear on Google’s SERP.
Keywords need to be weaved into the contents of webpages,
especially in the page URL, title and description (Exhibit 26.8) as well as
the body of the webpage (Exhibit 26.9).
The page title, also known as the meta title, contains
information intended for the browser and is contained in the page’s title tag. Titles are accorded
great importance by the search engines for ranking and should therefore contain the most important
keywords. The order in which keywords appear within the title also influences the search results.
Although the cut-off for page titles varies depending on the device, typically,
Google displays the first 50 to 60 characters (roughly 600 pixels) of the meta title. Platforms such
as MOZ provide tools that may be
used for previewing meta titles.
Exhibit 26.9 HTML code snippet shows keywords weaved into the webpage. Important
places such as title, description, headers and anchor tags, and the alt attribute are highlighted.
The description of the webpage (which is stored within
the page’s meta-description tags) appears below the title, on the SERP. Should any of the words
that users use in their query, appear in the title or the description, they are highlighted. Thus,
by weaving keywords into the description, marketers can draw the users’ attention and increase the
likelihood that they visit the page. However, unlike the title, the description is not used by the
search engines for ranking purposes.
Whereas there is no official rule on length of the meta-description, Google typically
limits them to roughly 155–160 characters. However, the cut-off varies depending on device as well
as context.
Note that the meta-description does not always appear on SERP. Sometimes, instead
of the meta-description, Google’s algorithms may use sentences or phrases from the webpage that better
match the searched keywords.
The URL (i.e., the address of the webpage) is another criterion used by Google for ranking pages. The same
applies for the domain name, which appears in all URLs on the same website. This incidentally explains why keyword-rich domain
names are being sold at premium prices. Using keywords in URLs can also make the URL text more
meaningful, particularly when the URL serves as the anchor for inbound links to the webpage.
Exhibit 26.10 Layout of a webpage. Keyword placed in the body section are
weighted more heavily than those placed in the other sections.
Because the body section usually contains the main content
of the page, credence or weight of a keyword is higher when it appears in the body of a webpage,
as opposed to other parts of the page such as menu, banner, footer or sidebars (Exhibit 26.10).
Headers (HTML tags < h1 >, < h2 >, < h3 >, etc.) that are keyword-rich improve the
webpage’s ranking for those keywords (Exhibit 26.9). Keywords place between anchor tags
(HTML tag < a >) can also improve the page’s ranking. Search engines consider the text used in links
to be a strong indicator of the content on the linked page.
Because search engines cannot decipher images, it improves optimization if the
website developer provides a description of the image for the search engine. HTML (HyperText
Markup Language), the language used for creating webpages, provides an attribute called “alt” that may
be used fot this purpose. Search engines use these descriptors for ranking images, as well as for page
ranking.
Incidentally, the meta keyword tag which was once used to provide a list of keywords
to search engines, is no longer considered by major search engines like Google. In fact, Google has
explicitly stated that it ignores the meta keyword tag when ranking websites. It’s inclusion merely
grants competitor’s easy access to the website’s keywords.