Amongst savvy marketing and web design folks, meta data means a lot. Yet to many in the advice professions – the people who deal with data every day, meta data means little.
What is meta data?
Meta data in web marketing terms, is the data attached to a web page that describes information about that web page. Every page on your website should have meta data.
Why is meta data important?
Meta data is used by search engines including Google and Bing to identify and rank your website against other websites. In addition to looking at your actual website content, they look at the meta data that’s hidden from public view and attached to your page.
When websites have low or incomplete meta data, the search engine is more likely to rank your website lower. Practically this means that when potential clients are on a search engine looking for you, they will find your competitors first.
If you’re not close to the top of the results, or are on page 2 or more of the results, chances are they won’t find your website at all. As a result, the potential clients are likely to end up in your competitor’s office seeking advice and assistance, rather than in your office.
What should your website meta data include?
At a minimum level, every page on your website should include the following meta data:
– A page title or in tech speak ‘Title Tag’
– A description about the page or in tech speak ‘Meta Tag’
– A word that describes the topic of the page or in tech speak ‘Keyword’
– A description about each image on the page or in tech speak ‘Alt Image Tag’
If you add meta data to my website will I get to the top of the page on search results?
Your website rank is very much likely to improve on a search engine if your site has good content and good meta data. Certainly you’re more likely to appear before those competitors who haven’t paid any attention to their meta data. Meta data is however not the only thing however that search engines use to rank your site. Other things include a website page sitemap, the number of links on other web sites to your site and a completed free business listing which many search engines now offer. Over time through building and managing websites, we can learn and refine what we do to make a website rank higher.
Search engines do not publish how they actually determine website page ranks on their search results. If they did, their own competitors could come along and perhaps make a better search engine.
How many new clients might I be missing out on?
You are probably missing out on lots of new clients. According to the Google keyword search tool, the following searches were undertaken by people using their search engine in the last 12 months.
- Financial Planner Sydney Average 880 people per month – 10,560 per year
- Financial Planner Melbourne Average 880 people per month – 10,560 per year
- Financial Planner Brisbane Average 720 people per month – 8,640 per year
- Accountant Sydney Average 1300 people per month – 15,600 per year
- Accountant Melbourne Average 1600 people per month – 19,200 per year
- Accountant Brisbane Average 1300 people per month- 15,600 per year
Of course you also find out your own suburb and search averages using the Google keyword search tool. You can also hire a marketing professional to help you explore the opportunity.
How can I tell what website visitors my website has?
Google provides a free tool to help businesses discover how many visitors their website gets. In this regard, your web marketing strategy and results are really transparent. You can see the number of specific visitors to a page as well as other data.
Would you like to talk about improving your own website?
If you would like to talk about your own website performance and improvement AM WEEK can help. Using our own strategy and experience, we work with a small number of trusted providers to help advice firms improve their own website’s performance. We know from experience how to create content and meta data that improves website ranks. To make an appointment, please contact us
