SEO Basics

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Create unique, accurate page titles

Indicate page titles by using title tags

A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. The <title> tag should be placed within the <head> tag of the HTML document (1). Ideally, you should create a unique title for each page on your site.

Page title contents are displayed in search results

If your document appears in a search results page, the contents of the title tag will usually appear in the first line of the results (if you're unfamiliar with the different parts of a Google search result, you might want to check out the anatomy of a search result video by Google engineer Matt Cutts, and this helpful diagram of a Google search results page). Words in the title are bolded if they appear in the

user's search query. This can help users recognize if the page is likely to be relevant to their search (2).

The title for your homepage can list the name of your website/business and could include other bits of important information like the physical location of the business or maybe a few of its main focuses or offerings (3).

Create Page Titles through the Cabanova Sitebuilder:

To learn how to create a page title click here.

Best Practices

Accurately describe the page's content

Choose a title that effectively communicates the topic of the page's content.

Avoid:

choosing a title that has no relation to the content on the page

using default or vague titles like "Untitled" or "New Page 1"

Create unique title tags for each page

Each of your pages should ideally have a unique title tag, which helps Google know how the page is distinct from the others on your site.

Avoid:

using a single title tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages

Use brief, but descriptive titles

Titles can be both short and informative. If the title is too long, Google will show only a portion of it in

the search result.

Avoid:

using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users

stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags

Make use of the "description" meta tag

Summaries can be defined for each page

A page's description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a summary of what the page is about (1). Whereas a page's title may be a few words or a phrase, a page's description meta tag might be a sentence or two or a short paragraph. Google Webmaster Tools provides a handy content analysis section that'll tell you about any description meta tags that are either too short, long, or duplicated too many times (the same information is also shown for <title> tags). Like the <title> tag, the description meta tag is placed within the <head> tag of your HTML document.

What are the merits of description meta tags?

Description meta tags are important because Google might use them as snippets for your pages. Note that we say "might" because Google may choose to use a relevant section of your page's visible text if it does a good job of matching up with a user's query. Alternatively, Google might use your site's description in the Open Directory Project if your site is listed there (learn how to prevent search engines from displaying ODP data).

Adding description meta tags to each of your pages is always a good practice in case Google cannot find a good selection of text to use in the snippet. The Webmaster Central Blog has an informative post on improving snippets with better description meta tags.

Words in the snippet are bolded when they appear in the user's query (2). This gives the user clues about whether the content on the page matches with what he or she is looking for. (3) is another example, this time showing a snippet from a description meta tag on a deeper page (which ideally has its own unique description meta tag) containing an article.

How you can make use of the Description Meta Tag through the Cabanova Sitebuilder

To learn how to use Description Meta Tag click here.

Best Practices

Accurately summarize the page's content

Write a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result.

Avoid:

writing a description meta tag that has no relation to the content on the page

using generic descriptions like "This is a web page" or "Page about baseball cards"

filling the description with only keywords

copying and pasting the entire content of the document into the description meta tag

Use unique descriptions for each page

Having a different description meta tag for each page helps both users and Google, especially in searches where users may bring up multiple pages on your domain (e.g. searches using the site: operator). If your site has thousands or even millions of pages, hand-crafting description meta tags probably isn't feasible. In this case, you could automatically generate description meta tags based on each page's content.

Avoid:

using a single description meta tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages