Meta is a prefix used to describe something that is “added to” or “beyond” something; in this case, additional “underlying” information to your web page content of text and images (and/or video).

Generally speaking, it is a requirement of every website to appear within search engine results for its preferred search terms. Page Meta information assists with this by providing search engines with titles and descriptions used in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Meta information  is a necessity in aiding driving search traffic to your website. Your website Dashboard allows you to provide search engines with information they require to successfully index your website. We suggest that all Meta fields on your web pages be completed appropriately; leaving these fields blank will not help your website's cause in being successfully indexed by search engines.

This section covers key elements pertaining to page titles, keywords and meta descriptions.

Create Page Titles

Each web page’s Page Title is an important component in attracting visitors. It also tells visitors about the content on your page by displaying as the main title link within search engine results pages (SERPs), and within a user’s web browser display bar or navigation tab after the user has clicked onto your page.

Typically, search engines have enough space to display just 65 characters as your web page hyperlink within their SERPs. It is therefore recommended that you write page titles limited to 65 characters (N.B. the number of characters displayed varies between search engines) to reduce truncated link titles 

Page Titles should be composed with keywords relevant to the page content, not the website as a whole . The most effective page titles utilise keywords that also appear in body and heading text on the page, with the most important keywords appearing towards the beginning of the Page Title (this is called “weighting” keywords). To enter page titles for each of your web pages:

1. Go to Pages > Add / Edit Pages.
2. Select a page from within the Main Menu or Unattached Pages.
3. Enter a page title into the Page Title field, per the guides provided above 
4. Save & Exit the page.
5. Publish the website.

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Add Menu Labels

Effective navigation menu labels can be established names such as ‘Contact Us’, ‘About Us’, ‘Portfolio’, ‘Products’, ‘Services’, etc.

The Menu Label is the actual name of the page. It will also appear in the navigation menu of your website and in the Main Menu list of pages (as well as all pages listed under Unattached Pages ). The Menu Label should describe the content of your page in one to two words so that users can easily recognise what content they will reach by clicking on a menu item.

You can edit the menu label of a page at any time.

1. Go to Pages > Add / Edit Pages
2. Click on a page name within the Main Menu or Unattached Pages list.
3. Type the menu label into the Menu Label field.
4. Save & Exit the page. Your page's Menu Label will be visible within the page list. 
5. Publish the website for the change to take effect.

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Add Page-specific Keywords

Page-specific keywords are words and phrases that describe the content found on your page. Although certain search engines pay less attention to keywords than they have in recent years, it is still good practice to provide page content-relevant keywords.

It is important that you do not repeat keywords in a manner such as: “florist, florist, florist, florist”. This is known as keyword spamming and can result in search engines blacklisting your website. However, it is okay to use the same word in different configurations, i.e. ‘florist shop Melbourne’, ‘wedding bouquet florist’, etc. so long as the words or phrases have direct relevance to the content on the page but not the website as a whole .

1. Go to Pages > Add / Edit Pages
2. Click on a page name in the Main Menu or Unattached Pages list.
3. Click the Keywords & Description button.
4. To use the default keywords that have already been added from the Preferences section of your website Dashboard,  click use default.  You can use default keywords and add more keywords for the specific content on your page.
5. Type words and/or phrases into the Keywords field. Your keywords can contain more than one word. Separate each keyword string with a comma and a space. 
6. Click Okay to save.
7. Save & Exit the page
8. Publish your website.

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Add a Meta Description

Descriptions feature in search engine results pages (SERPs) directly beneath your Page Title and should be limited to ~165 characters in order to fit within search engine display limits 

Descriptions are an important component in getting your web page successfully indexed by search engines. Web users also use your page descriptions to add weight to the relevance of what they’re searching for, i.e. eye-catching and emotive descriptions will sooner capture an audience than a poorly written description. 

Like Page Titles, the Description must describe the content on the page as opposed to the website as a whole , e.g. a florist  web page that contains content about different flower species might use a description such as “Our Melbourne showroom stocks a wide variety of fresh market flowers including roses, geraniums, birds of paradise and australian natives”.

Keep your Meta description to ~165 characters in length including spaces.

1. Go to Pages > Add / Edit Pages
2. Click on a page name in the Main Menu or Unattached Pages list.
3. Click the Keywords & Description button.
4. To use the default keywords that have already been added from the Preferences section of your website Dashboard,  click use default.  You can use default keywords and add more keywords for the specific content on your page.
5. Type words and/or phrases into the Keywords field. Your keywords can contain more than one word. Separate each keyword string with a comma and a space.
6. Click Okay to save.
7. Save & Exit the page
8. Publish your website.

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Inserting code (advanced users only)

This text input field is for website owners with advanced coding skills to embed application scripts on a page. Some websites have extra functionality that requires additional code to control display elements on a page such as, but not limited to, banner advertising plugins.

Code entered is placed within the <head> and </head> tags of the web page ( page not the website as a whole).

1. Go to Pages > Add / Edit Pages
2. Click on a page name in the Main Menu or Unattached Pages list.
3. Click the Insert Code (Advanced) button.
4. Enter the necessary code.
5. Click Okay
6. Save & Exit the page.
7. Publish your website.

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Why doesn't my site appear in Google or other search engines yet?

Google sends crawlers out to scout the Internet for new websites every few months so it is likely that your website may not be listed by Google or other search engines until 2-3 months after your website is live.

You can help to speed up the process by:

1. Manually submitting your website to Google (see the Google website for more information).
2. Proactively seeking referrers to link from their website to yours. You can offer links back to their website from your website, this is called creating  reciprocal links .
3. Start an advertising campaign with Google such as AdWords (see the Google website for more information).

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How do I generate a XML site map for Google?

Search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing will periodically crawl and index your site's web pages according to, in part, the instructions provided within your site's XML (Extensible Markup Language) sitemap. There are dozens of XML sitemap generators readily available over the Internet and, once you have created your sitemap, we can upload the resulting text file to your web site. Contact our support team for assistance.