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Article of
the week; How to Write and Use Description Tags on Your Web
Pages
By
Donald Nelson (c) 2004
Many people are afraid to write the meta tags for their websites,
thinking that they would have to be search engine optimization
specialists in order to do it properly. While you may not
have any special expertise in the field of search engine optimization,
you should be an expert in your own business's area of activity,
and, if you combine this knowledge with some simple guidelines,
you can write accurate meta tags. Let us see how to write
one of the most important meta tags, the description tag.
The description tag is one of the "big three" meta
tags, which also include the title tag, and the keywords tag.
These three meta tags along with other tags are located in
the html code of your website between the sections marked
and while this information is not seen on your web page when
someone views your site with a browser, the head section is
read by the search engine "robots" and helps the
search engines to "understand" what your web page
is all about.
Writing the description tag is a good exercise because it
will force you to become clear about what you are doing and
what you are offering to your viewers. A description tag is
in fact like a short mission statement, explaining your enterprise
in a nutshell. If someone wakes you in the middle of the night
and asks you what your website or your business is all about,
you should be able to answer with a concise two or three sentence
description without any hesitation.
Below is step-by-step guide to creating and using effective
description tags:
1. Write like a journalist. Mention the important
W's, such as who, what, where, when, why. In a description
tag, the "what" is the most important element. What
do you do? What do you sell? Where do you do it? What is this
page all about? Describe what you do in a simple sentence
and be sure to incorporate the words and phrases which are
most likely to be used when people search for your product
or service.
Suppose your business is the Kenosha Wisconsin Window Cleaning
Company. A description tag for your main page might start
off like this: "The Kenosha Wisconsin Window Cleaning
Company provides window cleaning services for residences and
businesses in the greater Kenosha, Wisconsin area."
2. Include your Unique Selling Proposition or USP:
The USP is actually the "why" of the classic "who,
what, where and why" formula. Why should someone use
your service and not someone else's? The USP is what sets
you apart from the others.
Remember when someone makes a query in a search engine yours
will not be the only site that comes up. Your competitors
will also be there, and they will offer similar products or
services. In many search engines the description tag or part
of the description tag is displayed in the search results.
If your description tag provides some distinctive information,
conveying a unique benefit that you provide, then the likelihood
that a searcher will click-through to your site will increase.
Let's go back to the example of the Kenosha Window Cleaning
site and add the USP to the description. The first lines of
the description read: "The Kenosha Wisconsin Window Cleaning
Company provides window cleaning services for residences and
businesses in the greater Kenosha, Wisconsin area." Another
sentence saying "We guarant?e a great job every
time at a price you can afford," could be added to give
more detail about the quality, guarant?e and the affordability
of the service.
3. Put this description in the meta tag section of the
head and in the text of the page itself.
You've just taken some time to explain what your web page
is all about, and have included some compelling reason why
someone should buy your product or service. Don't hide this
information in a place where your readers cannot see it. If
you only put the description in the meta tag section, then
the search engine robots will see it, but many of your visitors
will not.
Rather, use your description as part of your first paragraph
or even as part of your opening headline. Your description
contains your important key phrase and key words. If you place
it in the opening paragraph or somewhere on your page, then
the search engine optimization value of the description is
doubled or even tripled. A big mistake in search engine optimization
is to use meta tags, but then have no descriptive text on
the page, relying on images to convey the message. Use the
description tag to begin your text, and add some more to amplify
it and expand on what you have written.
4. Write a distinct description tag for each of your pages,
focusing on the unique content and purpose of that particular
page.
Another big mistake on many websites is to use the same meta
tags on all the pages. Each of your pages is different. Each
page has or should have a special item of importance. Look
at your pages and think of the special part that the page
plays in your overall marketing effort, and make a unique
description tag. As with the description tag for your main
page, put this description within the text of the page itself.
Even if you get a professional search engine optimization
service to write the main meta tags for your site, you can
put this knowledge into practice whenever you add new pages
to your site. Good description tags will help your site to
be found in search engine queries, and when used as part of
the main text of your pages will also help your web visitors
to quickly understand your most important marketing messages.
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