Many search services use the HTML "title" tag and "meta description" tag on your web page to produce information displayed to their users. These tags have the following HTML format:
<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>This will be your site title (up to 60 characters)</TITLE> <META Name="Description" Content="This is the description of your site (up to 200 characters)." > </HEAD>The title and description, (especially title), are very important in determining how search engines display and rank your site listing.
Make sure there are no extra spaces or other non-printing characters in the above character sequences. Avoid foreign language characters that may not display properly on every browser. If you are using an HTML web page editor like Microsoft Front Page, you can access the page title by going to file/properties. If you forget to enter a page title, some editors will insert a "default" title like "Home", "Index", or "New Page 1". With some editors you will need to select "HTML mode" to enter the description. Insert the "META name=description" line as shown above and edit the content portion. The description line should be inserted anywhere between the "<HEAD>" and "</HEAD>" lines. Do not add any additional quote (") characters.
Tips:
Make sure your title and description contain simple words (key words) that people would use to search for your activity on SeekOn or any other search service.
Examples:
Terrible title/description:
- The Regal Beagle Excellent comestibles with an eclectic ambiance - Mariachi band plays after 9:00
(Notice the complete absence of applicable search words.)
Good example:
- Regal Beagle French Restaurant Fine dining in the San Antonio Riverwalk area - open for lunch and dinner - live entertainment - great wine list
(Notice location keywords "San Antonio" and "Riverwalk" and function keywords "Restaurant", "French", "dining", "lunch", "dinner", and "entertainment". Now you can be found if somebody searches for "French restaurants in San Antonio", etc.)
SeekOn categorizes site listings for larger cities into category pages like "Schools", "Hotels", etc. based on the automated finding of key words in the site's title or description unless the user specifies a category. The categorization is done in a certain order such that for example mention of "hotels" overrides mention of "recreation" or "shopping". If you believe your site is listed in an inappropriate category you may want to examine your title and description to see if you have the most effective combination of key words and you may want to remove words that are resulting in an inappropriate categorization.
Key words are critical to the right people finding your site on all search services, not just SeekOn. The best webmasters spend hours working out the wording of the title and description on their sites in order that they simultaneously read well, have the most informative description, and contain the most important key words. Avoid spelling errors!
Simply repeating key words in your title or description results in a very unprofessional looking and uninformative listing on search services and may result in poor ranking on search services that see keyword repetition as a form of spam.Using all or mostly caps in a title or description, the internet equivalent of SCREAMING, is also unprofessional.
SeekOn does not accept sites with offensive titles, descriptions, or content.
You can easily check the title and description tags on your site by viewing your site with a browser and selecting "view / source". Internet Explorer displays the title of the currently displayed web page on the bar at the extreme top of the window. You are the one most qualified to decide what your site is really about. Make sure the title and description tell that story!
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