Hey folks.
This post is about how to make sure your website headers match your content. This is a short review of how to find them and also, what they should be. You would be surprised how many website owners I have talked to that don’t know how Google and the other search engines are reading their content, and why it is being read a certain way. Knowing and adjusting your website header content is a big step in getting your website on the right track for effective SEO and online marketing.
How do I see my website header tags and what is in them?
Here is how to check to see what your headers look like:
- Visit your website.
- Click “View” in your browser.
- Click the “View Source” option.
- When the source code loads, you should see something like the code listed below. This blog is focusing on the meta tags “keywords” , “description”, and “title” just to keep things short. They are labeled in like colors in the code below :
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta name="description" content="Big Cloud Media is an Arlington, TX based, web-design, development and marketing company that builds business websites, web-applications, and marketing solutions." />
<meta name="keywords" content="web-design, development, marketing, business, Search Engine Optimization, websites, website" />
<title>Big Cloud Media Custom Business Website Design, Development & Marketing</title>
These tags make up part of what is known as the web-page header. They suggest to search bots how to list your page in their search results and how to categorize your site.
Website Meta Keywords
The website meta keywords can be found by the <meta name=“keywords” tag:
<meta name=“keywords” content=”web-design, development, marketing, business, Search Engine Optimization, websites, website” />
The content=”…” portion of this code is where you indicate which keywords you would like your site to be associated with. The catch here though is that you want them to be relevant to your code in your webpage. If they are not, it can hinder your SEO efforts. It is a good idea to repeat the keywords that you want to be found by in your content several times so that your keywords line up with your content. Do it with class though and make sure that the sentences make sense. There isn’t a point in trying to appease the search engines if you lose visitors in the process.
The Meta Description:
The website meta description can be found by looking for the <meta name=”description” tag:
<meta name=”description” content=”Big Cloud Media is an Arlington, TX based, web-design, development and marketing company that builds business websites, web-applications, and marketing solutions.” />
The meta description is where you give the search engines a short blurb about the webpage. This is often, in the Google search, the description that shows up under the search result. Sometimes the search engines will create their own for your site but if your description matches your content, it is likely Google will use it. Having an accurate and concise description of your site will also help your SEO efforts later on down the road. The more your headers line up with the content, the better.
The Title Tag
The title tag is can be found by looking for the <title> tag:
<title>Big Cloud Media Custom Business Website Design, Development & Marketing</title>
The <title> tag is your page title and also the text that appears in your browsers window bar. This should be intuitive and match up with your page content as well. The theme here is continuity. If your page is about Dogs, the title should include “Dogs” in it. The title of your page helps in your suggestion to the search engines about how your site should be listed and in what categories and search terms.
Why should I care about my meta tags?
Ultimately, it all comes down to how search engine friendly do you want your site to be and also, what does the search engine see when it reads your page. The more things that are missing, the less likely your site will be listed correctly and associated with the right search terms. Checking your headers and making sure they are accurate can also help to make your SEO efforts more fruitful.
This blog came around from a real-world situation I recently came upon. I recently met with a prospective client and after doing a site overview (which includes checking their header tags) we found random stuff in them including unrelated words, references to other companies, etc. Their header tags were hindering their progression online and were definitely not helping their SEO efforts. The prospective client had no clue until this was addressed by us. Thus, this post, my effort to help you all know a little more about the content that represents you online.
If you have more questions about any of this, please leave a comment or contact us right away. We would be more than happy to help you in your specific situation.
Thanks for reading and I hope that this post has been helpful for you.
Big Cloud Media
Posted in The Buzz on { December 8th, 2009 } ~ 12 Comments
Tagged with: Big Cloud Media • bigcloudmedia • code • content • description • effective • effectiveness • Google • keywords • meta • meta-tags • online marketing • SEO • source • tags • title • website • websites
December 8th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
[...] See original here: Make sure your headers match your content | Big Cloud Media [...]
December 9th, 2009 at 2:24 am
[...] Make sure your headers match your content | Big Cloud Media [...]
February 13th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
I was plesantly {surprised|shocked} to see this….
Look what I found in the Yahoo search engine. I just had to share this….
February 15th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Decent post that an SEO should read…
Designers should take this into consideration…
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:52 am
I bumped into another {great|good} post today….
I saw this really good post today….
April 21st, 2010 at 4:02 am
your blog is very good, and i have subscribed to your blog, i read a couple of posts on your blog and they all were so great, really nice. i read news online, and i spent most of my time reading blogs like yours
April 30th, 2010 at 2:31 am
I just tried to grab an feed for the RSS for the site & for some odd reason it isn’t properly showing up in Google Chrome. Does anyone have any suggestions???
June 28th, 2010 at 8:41 am
So very true, thanks for the post! Make sure your headers match your content | Big Cloud Media Custom Website Design, Development and Marketing was a wonderful read.
June 29th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Thanks!…
I think I will come back one day ! I had added RSS Feeds to my Google Personalized Homepage!…
August 3rd, 2010 at 2:03 am
I appreciate you for the advice! I?ll try it out.
August 3rd, 2010 at 7:19 am
Sorry for being off subject, but I’m just starting my website/blog. Why did you choose WordPress above blogger or any other web site program? I am wanting to figure out the very best way, since I’m not a techy.
August 3rd, 2010 at 8:36 am
Awesome, that’s exactly what I was seeking for! You just saved me alot of work