Meta data.

Most web copywriters know that they are supposed to write ‘it’; but, not all of them know what ‘it’ is for, or even what ‘it’ is.

Today, I will attempt to untangle the mystery.

What’s a meta?

The prefix meta has many meanings, but in biology and in computing, it is taken to mean “one level of order higher.”

The W3C, the standards authority for HTML code language, describes meta data in this way: “information about a document rather than document content” which is about as excellent a definition as we can get.

In SEO copywriting terms, the information about the web page (document) gives the search engine descriptive information about the contents of the document. The meta data and the page data (the words in the document) should be about the same topic and contain the same key words and phrases.

What meta data do I need to worry about?

Meta data for a web page can describe all kinds of things, but the two you need to think about for SEO copywriting are the ‘title’ and ‘description’ values.

Why?

Because search engines use these to help calculate how relevant your page is to the search.

And…Because search engines show the meta data to the searcher in the search results (sometimes…Google occasionally makes up its own description).

How to write SEO-friendly meta data

The key to writing meta data that helps with SEO is to provide a good description of what the page is about.

Of course, the key to all good SEO is… that’s right! Keywords.

We know from the last post on keywords that good keywords are the words that people use to search. So, if you follow the logic, then your description of the page and the meta title of the page should contain the keywords used on the page itself.

When providing SEO copywriting services, I do my keyword research first. Then I write a great headline and page copy based on those keywords.

I write for people first, then optimise after, adding keywords where there are too few, and providing alternatives where there are too many.

Lastly, I write the meta data. For the title, I use the title of the page making sure that my primary keywords are near the beginning. Browsers and search engines display up to 70 characters before truncating, so keep under that number and your readers will see the whole title.

For the description, I write about the page. Never copy and paste the introductory paragraph. Take 2 minutes, breathe, and write a short paragraph (up to 160 characters) about what someone will find on the page.

“Looking for an SEO copywriter? We are a UK SEO copywriting agency…”

That tells the reader at the point of decision on the search engine everything they need to know, AND it describes the kind of information on the page – it’s a page about SEO copywriting – AND it’s compelling copywriting too.

What about the meta keywords tag?

Don’t worry about it. Search engines like Google stopped using the keywords meta tag a long time ago.

Next in the SEO copywriter series: Anatomy of SEO copywriting

Back in June, we wrote about copywriting topic or pillar content pages. In that post we mentioned in passing that SEOmoz concluded that right now your social network equals rankings.

This means that social media is very important from the aspect of ranking well in search listings, not to mention the marketing reasons for engaging with your audience.

Nick Usborne also makes a delightful conclusion about social signals influencing search position. He calls it the web content sweet spot. The sweet spot Venn diagram on this post is such a great way to look at it.

Search engine optimisation used to be mean using keywords to establish your topic and getting links (aka backlinks) to your content for the elusive trust factor.

Today’s copywriter knows that social media is another form of ‘backlinking’ and one that gives a genuine people signal of trust. The more ‘clout’ the person has, the more trust the search engines put into their endorsement of you.

There is another reason social media is important for search

Social searching.

More and more people are using social sites for their searches. As a copywriter, I think this is incredibly important behaviour to understand.

Not only are your prospects actively searching on these social sites for topics and conversations about what you offer, but socially active web users are also asking the people in their social circles for their recommendations.

A recent example from Facebook tells all: “Anyone know a good Thai restaurant in Madrid?”

Promoting yourself in a social space

You know you can promote yourself on the social networks, although the many, many ways to do so are too much for this post. However, your own links in your own social profiles count for something, and sometimes your followers will reward you by sharing your links with their friends and followers.

Sharing your insightful blog posts, useful articles, interesting press releases, pillar content web pages, and newsletters is what can make social media work for your copywriting – for SEO reasons and for other marketing goals.

In short, share what you think, what you know, and what you offer.

And back that up with a healthy dose of sharing other useful information from your industry, sector or niche.

Pretty soon, this ‘social SEO’ will bring more visitors to your site and potentially move your ranking up in the search results.

Coming next in the series: How do I choose keywords?