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Now, to actually writing the description. Many of the rules for the title tag optimization apply here: The selection of the right keywords is crucial. The last thing you want is a high amount of traffic looking for something you are not selling. The example we used in the title tag was an online fishing rod store. Here are the results for a keyword search on Overture for ‘fishing rods’: As you can see, a lot of these keywords are extremely specific. A huge mistake webmasters make in selecting keywords is to try and optimize for as many as they can. The thought being – ”Even if I don’t sell ‘antique fishing rods’, chances are 1 out of 100 people that come through here looking for them will buy something I have, wont’ they?” Well, chances are more like 1 in 10,000 and all you’ve done is get 100 top 30 rankings for poor conversion keywords instead of 10 top 3 rankings for high conversion keywords. The difference in earnings is staggering and you can view more information on keyword selection in our keyword selection process article. Now, if we take into consideration that a person searching for ‘fishing rod’ is also searching for ‘fishing rods’, and people searching for a ‘fishing reel’ are also searching for ‘fishing reels’, then we can rule out duplicating keywords with plurals. Note: this is not always the case and some words have plurals that suggest different things. ‘Popular speaker’ could be a search for famous interviews or speeches whereas ‘popular speakers’ will probably be interpreted as a search for audio equipment. This is certainly the case on Google right now who does not allow audio advertising on a search for ‘popular speaker’. This is not a perfect example but I hope you get the idea. We will not advertise that we sell a certain brand of fishing rod that we do not actually sell. If people are searching for an exact brand of fishing rod their not going to be persuaded to change their minds by your lovely graphics. In this instance our fishing rods site sells Sage, Hardy, Shakespear and Shimano fishing rods so that is all we will mention. If you sell branded products then you are well advised to placed them in your meta description tag. Out of the above keywords we will select ‘cheap fishing rods’, ‘fishing rods store’ and ‘fishing rods for sale’. This give us an initial description of: Cheap fishing rods for sale. Our fishing rods store sells Sage, Hardy, Browning and Shimano fishing rods. Even at this initial point our description isn’t too bad. There are three repetitions of our main keyphrase ‘fishing rods’, we have included all our selected keyphrases at least once and we have mentioned specific brands for targeted searchers. We have now set ourselves up to be able to optimize the rest of our page for ranking in results for all the following search queries:
Now, you have to think of expanding it to include as many keyphrase variations as possible. Remember search engines do not index based on phrases. Just because your site has the phrase ‘cheap fishing rods’ in the description, this does not mean when someone searches for ‘cheap fishing rods’ that you will be ranked above descriptions with the phrases ‘fishing rods sold cheaply’, ‘cheapest sales of fishing rods’ and even ‘our fishing equipment consists of rods and reels at cheap prices’. So to bulk up your description to make you appear an authority on the subject you need variation in both order and semantics. For this example, we take all our keyphrases and create variations based on their derivatives: ‘cheap ’ becomes ‘cheapest’ as this will boost the relevance of both words. ‘fishing rods’ becomes ‘fishing tackle’ as this covers the exact same customers. We can also add different types of fishing that people might be searching for rods for such as ‘flyfishing’, ‘saltwater’. We also notice in our keyword search that people also search for ‘fly fishing’ and ‘salt water’. If we can integrate these variations into our description along with the originals both will be worth more weight. ‘flyfishing’ and ‘flyfishings’ are simple repetitions. ‘fly fishing’ and ‘flyfishing’ are authoritative. So, we create a description like this: Cheap fishing rods for sale in the extensive range of our online flyfishing and saltwater fishing rods store. We sell the cheapest Sage, Hardy, Browning and Shimano fishing tackle for fly fishing and salt water fishing. So from an original list of around 15 possible search matches for our site we have just tripled the number of keyphrases we can rank for. Remember, every keyword in this description is something that we sell. This description also give us the chance to be clicked on over our competitors. If we are ranked in the fourth position but we are the only ones who are actually stating that we sell ‘Sage Fishing Rods’ in our description then the likelihood is that we will be clicked on rather than the listings above us that do not state this in their description. Also remember, most search engines highlight matched search terms in the search engine results. Having the relevant search terms in your title and description will get you a better clickthrough ratio. If you have your own mailing list and would like to use this material to send your clients, please state this using the email form above. If you do not you will be in violation of copyright infringement which we will take action upon. We're nice people and generally will be flattered that you want to use our articles and we've never said no yet. Don't cheat the system, let's all keep above board. |