Meta Description & Meta Keywords

[Sharon]

Not being a web designer I am not sure how best to use these fields in Actinic Catalog. Could you give suggestions on how to best utilise the fields?
Thanks,
Sharon
PS I have performed a search but couldn't find a simple answer regarding what to put into each section.....

[OllyBug]

Hi Sharon.

I am not a web designer either but I have managed to pull a lot of resources from the internet regarding SEO and meta tags are only part of the story. I think, although some of the SEO professionals here may disagree with me, the meta tags you have currently on your brochure page (home page) are fine. (your ranking on google is pretty good). However you seem to be missing the keywords etc from each section. click on each section and on the details tab and place keywords here relative to the individual section. However moving away from meta tags, have a look at your page titles. These, I have found most important when optimising my sites. Add product keywords to here as well. Also, and I am not sure if this makes a difference but your page titles have underscores. e.g you have a page ;Cloth_Nappies; why not call it 'Cloth Nappies - Buy Shaped Nappies, Organic nappies' (without too much repetion of one keyword as search engines don't like this!)

HSH

Now to someone else for a professional's opinion........

[marke]

Actinic allows you to add meta keywords and a meta description. Most seach engines don't use these for ranking purposes any more but they are important and it is worth spending time on them. Meta keywords should be keywords which relate generally to your site and specifically to that page. So if you have a particular page selling item1 then item1 should be mentioned in the keyword list as well as all other general keywords. I always try to be as specific as I can to the subject of the individual page. I read somewhere that Google for example will use these to help determine the subject matter of the page although not to rank it.
To a certain extent this is also true of the meta description. I think in reality the biggest thing with the meta description is to know that Google will use this information in the text of your search results (along with the page title). This means that you should make both of these both relevent to your site but also contain text which, when someone finds your page in the search results, makes them want to click through to your site.

[jont]

They are worth spending a little time on as some recent reports suggest they are holding a little more weight than they did this time last year. That said these are the things I come back to once the page is up and running with good content, page titles etc.

The description is particularly useful as thus is displayed on a google result as a brief synopsis about the page - it could help someone click your site if they description is accurate and informative.

[Sharon]

Thanks for the replies. I previously found lots of opinion but little advice. As you have probably realised I started to populate the fields but haven't got round to completing them yet. The tips about page titles and descriptions are great. My next task!