Metadata

The admin row that is visible after you log in to the CMS has a menu item "Edit meta". Metadata is not visible for normal visitors, but is used by search engines to index and display search results.

URL: This field contains the address of a page. This url has to be a unique value within the domain or website. (The use of normal alphabetic characters, numbers, - or _ are preferred for url's. A slash "/" is never allowed in an url, this character is reserved for other purposes when entered into an address bar. The page will not be shown when this character is used in a wrong way.)

Meta title

A correct title helps search engines to determine what kind of information is displayed on the page. It has a relatively large impact on "ranking" in search results, and is probably the most important "meta tag". The absence of a meta title has a relatively large influence on the place within search results. It is therefore wise to always fill out a meta title.

The meta title appears at the top of the browser window, in most browsers in the tab. The meta title appears in the search results page of search engines as well. Therefore the title plays a big role for users, especially if it gives an accurate impression of what kind of content can be found on the page. 

Writing a meta title:

– Make sure that a title consists of less than 60 characters

– Use a unique title for each individual page

– To give visibility to your brand, you can add it to the title For example "The 5 most beautiful oceans in the world – Holland-America Line"

Meta description

Meta descriptions contain a description of the content of the page. This is shown in result pages of search engines, directly below the meta title. It's therefore important to provide a compelling, compact description of the page that makes people want to click on the link.

While the meta description won't directly affect how search engines index your site, it will affect the number of clicks on your website. Since the number of clicks does influence the position in search results, indirectly the meta description does have effect on the "ranking".

Meta description writing:

– Make sure a description contains at most 130 characters

– Clearly describe what the visitor can expect when he clicks on the link

– Use a unique description for each page

A meta description is not always shown in search results. Depending on what the user is looking for, Google might choose to show parts of text on the page, while other search engines simply do show the meta description.

Meta tags (keywords)

The meta tag keywords is rarely used anymore. They will not be displayed on the page itself, and search engines will usually ignore them. Leaving it empty is fine.

Previously, keywords were used to quickly represent what the contents of a page is.