REthink Wine Blog

 

As Launch Manager at Inertia, one of the responsibilities I have is collecting a completed Launch Packet from each client for each website we build. These packets are integral to the Launch process, and without them, we would not be able to launch websites.

Some of the information requested in the Launch packet may seem trivial, including something as simple sounding as website keywords and description. However, these pieces of information are just one of the ways you can attract and drive traffic to your website.

Search engine optimization increases your chances of being found on the ever growing, ever present Internet. Search engines operate differently from one another, utilizing algorithms and other criteria when coming up with query results. They use HTML Meta tags, such as title, description, keywords, and even content on the webpage itself, when determining what position to rank a website in these query results.

Armed with this knowledge, when coming up with website keywords and description, we recommend considering the following:

1) HTML tags have a maximum number of characters. Some search engines are unable to read beyond the following limits: 150 for the description and 874 for the keywords. Characters include all punctuation marks, special characters and spaces.

2) Search engines are unable to recognize content that is located within images, such as photos, navigation buttons and logos. For this reason, we tend to discourage the use of Flash completely for a website.

3) The website description should be concise, informative and convey the content and purpose of the site. Remember, you only have 150 characters, which is equivalent to approximately two lines.

4) Place keywords that are associated to one another closer together, so they are affiliated with one another. For example, Napa, Cabernet Sauvignon, versus splitting them up and placing words between them.

5) Last, but not least. Check for spelling errors.

This entry was posted by Anna Miranda on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Site Design and Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.