DIY SEO: Step 2 – Page Title, Page Description and Keywords

Posted October 9, 2008 · Filed Under SEO for WordPress · 784 views · 8 Comments

This is the fourth post in our DIY SEO for WordPress series.

You’ve done your keyword research, you’ve got your list of keywords you want to optimize for, and now it’s time to put all that good research to use.

Ready?

When it comes to SEO that you can do for your site, the page title, page description and the keywords in your keyword META tag are extremely important. But let’s clear up a point of potential confusion before we start.

Your page title is NOT what you think it is. It’s not the title of your page or post that you enter in the box called “Title” when you’re writing a page or post. Well, ok, that’s a page title to you, yes, but the search engines see that title as merely a header. To the search engines, your page title is the title contained in the <title> tag in your code. (Click the image to see an example.)

If you click (in FireFox) View then Page Source, or (in Internet Explorer) View then Source, somewhere near the top you’ll see the title tag:
<title>The Page Title</title>

The page description and the keywords are contained in META tags, also in your code:
<meta name="description" content="This is the page description. Make sure to utilize your keywords." /> <meta name="keywords" content="this, is, where, you, put, your, keywords, and, keyword phrases, all, separated, by, commas" />

WordPress configures these for you automatically, but maybe not in the most optimized fashion, depending on your site and your content. To override what WordPress does, I recommend a handy plugin called All In One SEO.

Helping All In One SEO Help You

Immediately upon installation, this plugin is ready to go. Its defaults are based on current SEO best practices and are updated frequently through plugin upgrades. That’s both good news and potentially bad news for you, because the defaults are dependent upon what you enter as titles, categories and tags. So the good news is, if you’re already in the habit of making sure your keywords are in your post and page titles, and you’re using your keywords as categories and tags, you’re good to go. Just install this baby, activate it, and continue blogging. The bad news is, if you’re not doing these things, the defaults aren’t going to help you as much as they could, so you’re going to have to do some overriding.

Titles
This is where you’ll want to do the bulk of your overriding, as this is the single most SEO-important element on your page…period. This is also where you’ll feel the greatest conflict between what’s good for your readers and what’s good for the search engines. By giving you access to override the META title for your page, this plugin gives you a way to cater to both:

Continue to use your eye-popping, attention-getting, smarty-pants post titles. They’re for people and people like when you’re interesting. Cater to them when you write your post titles and continue to grab their attention in creative ways.
Override the META title the plugin generates from the title you’ve given and load it with your most effective keywords relative to the content of your post. You don’t have to work so hard to be interesting and attention getting here, at least not in the same way you do for human readers. Search engines are much more Maxwell Smart-like; they want “just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”

Page Description
When your pages show up in search engine results, the page description is the part that shows below the clickable link to your page (aka the META page title) in the results list. You want your keywords in there, yes, but you also want it to be descriptive of what your page is about in an enticing way that will encourage people to click through to read it. This is the “commercial” for your page. Make it count.

Keywords
Here is where you can help this plugin do its job more effectively: start using your keywords as your tags on your posts. Do this, and you won’t have to override anything here.

Once the plugin is installed, you’ll see a new section on the post and page edit screens, right below the categories section, aptly named “All In One SEO Pack“. Here’s what it looks like:

Site-wide settings can be found by clicking Settings -> All In One SEO Pack from your WordPress Dashboard. Fill in the Page Title, Page Description and Keywords with your WHOLE site in mind, here. Leave the default settings for the rest of the options you find. Don’t forget to save your changes!

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1598 Responses2008-10-09+22%3A00%3A36Suzanne to “DIY SEO: Step 2 – Page Title, Page Description and Keywords”

Clem - Unique Business Opportunity
October 14th, 2008 11:49 am

This is incredibly useful, relevant, and easy to understand information on SEO. For anyone needing to develop a better understanding of how to perform this kind of work on their website or blog, I can not imagine a better place to refer them to “get it” and get it quickly. As I read the information, I felt my expression go back and forth from nodding in agreement to surprise and excitement each time I learned something new.

Clem – Unique Business Opportunity´s last blog post..The Social Security Myth
Suzanne
October 14th, 2008 12:13 pm

Clem,

Thanks for your kind words. This lets me know that I’m “hitting the spot” I set out to hit with this series. I want to de-mysify SEO as much as possible for those who would have before been inclined to duck and run from the topic.

There’s so much people can do for themselves in this area, and if they want more done, yes – they may need to contract with an expert for that – but why not do everything they can do themselves first? Besides, doing so will lay a fabulous foundation for the expert to build upon and cost them less, in the long run.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the series!
Suzanne
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work
October 14th, 2008 4:06 pm

Hi Suzanne,

I’m pleased that I finally got around to reading this series. Can you tell us more about the Google tool? many of the keywords I found for my site were not even close to how I’d like to be found. Many were there as well but I wondered how they would add a lot of keywords like making money online when I never have written about that. Do they just grab everything close to show you the possibilities?

Tom Volkar / Delightful Work´s last blog post..Finding Your Path to a Successful Business Startup
Suzanne
October 14th, 2008 4:47 pm

Tom,

When you enter your website address in the tool, it scans your content and picks up keywords you’ve defined (if any) and then suggests keywords based on your content. So, yes, it grabs things “close” to what you write about. Think of it like a form of keyword Scrabble…it mixes things up into different combinations to provide related keyword suggestions.

Even though you don’t specifically write about ‘making money online’, you do write about starting your own business, and it’s not a big stretch from one to the other.

Remember, that tool’s “job” is to generate keyword ideas. Emphasis on the ‘ideas’.

Suzanne
Sarah
December 23rd, 2008 7:24 pm

I have a question about using the SEO plugin.
Do you recommend that one should add a description to all of there post?
I have just been leaving this blank and letting google generate its own description for me, is this OK?

On my main pages I wrote a description. But I’m not sure if I should do it on the blog posts or not.

Sarah´s last blog post..Lululemon Boxing Day Sale
Suzanne
December 24th, 2008 7:06 am

Sarah – if you’re happy with the description Google generates on its own, then leave it blank. If not, craft your own. I believe Google grabs the first 160 characters or so of your post body, so if your opening paragraph is strong and keyword-loaded, then you’re probably ok. If not, I recommend writing your own description.
Sandy
January 19th, 2009 1:04 am

Suzanne,

Just wanted to give you props for putting this series together. It is complete, and it is easy for someone to understand. I wish I had you around when I started my first blog. Anyway, looking forward to reading the rest of the series, you always find a nugget here and there. BTW-all in one seo is probably my favorite plug in!
Suzanne
January 19th, 2009 10:17 am

Sandy – thanks for the positive feedback – I’m glad you’re finding the series helpful.