Meta Data

Viewing/Editing your site's Meta Data:

Path, from the left navigation menu: ['Customization' section] > Meta Data

Meta Data is an incredibly important set of information about the content of your website which forms an integral part of how highly your site is ranked in your chosen area of operation. Choose wisely and you will ensure that your site is found by the masses. Choose poorly and you will have a wonderful site, lamenting at the bottom of the rankings. Using Meta Tags you can help your site achieve higher rankings in specific search categories - perhaps categories where you feel your site will generate maximum sales...

Put simply, Meta Data is information (describing your web page) not visible to the human eye at the time of reading your web-page, but information that is visible to the search engine spiders that trawl the web, indexing pages. The Meta Data within your site is collected by Search Engine spiders, and therein determines the likelihood of your page being returned  against searches for specific words and/or phrases.  There are many manuals and courses available on optimizing websites and, within them all, sections on Meta Data - it is a good idea to read through some of those available to aid your understanding of meta data, before setting about making changes to this section.

If you feel you are ready to make changes to your site's meta data, then you can easily access the Meta Data options by selecting the link, under the "Customization" section of the Navigation Menu, entitled "Meta Data".

Fig. 2.5.3.1: The "Meta Data" link for reviewing / changing the Meta Data on your site:

This link will load the Meta Data options, which you can change as required.

Fig. 2.5.3.2: The "Meta Data" window

Understanding Tokens:

Before looking at the individual elements, within the Meta Data page, that can be modified we must first understand what 'tokens' are, for tokens feature throughout the modifiable areas of the Meta Data section.

A token is a 'placeholder' for a piece of dynamic text. By this we mean a piece of 'code' which will, when the respective page(s) load, be substituted dynamically for some relevant information. A 'date token', for example, will automatically insert today's date in place of the token on the web-page. Tokens make it easy for you to insert dynamic text into your web pages on the Spoken Network Partner System. Similarly, for a book 'information page' it would be pointless having one, static piece of text describing a specific author, when there are hundreds upon hundreds of different authors' works being displayed. Instead, using a token, we can effectively tell the web-page to insert the author's name for the work currently being viewed by the customer - whatever that work may be.

For each of the three major page-types, for which you can edit meta data, there is a set of tokens 'available'. By 'available' we mean that, if used within the page for which it is 'available', the token will be turned automatically into the corresponding value when the page is viewed by a customer. Please note that if you use a token on a page for which the token is not 'available' then it will not display the corresponding text - the tokens are page-specific in this sense.

As we work through the three page-types for which we can edit meta data, below, we will identify the different tokens available for the page in question first, before looking at the editable fields.

Page Type: Main Pages:

Pages included in this Page Type:

Tokens available for this Page Type:

{PageName}

This is the name of the page - for example, if you created a Custom Page entitled "Christmas Special Offers" this page title will be substituted for the {PageName} token when the page loads (only within those Meta Tags that feature this token, of course).

{PageDescription}

This token is the description of the page. This is automatically generated for the hard-coded Spoken Network pages, but for those pages you create, for example Custom Pages, you yourself specify the page description - and it's this page description that replaces the {PageDescription} token within those Meta Tags that feature this token.

Editable Fields for this Page Type:

Title Tag

The Title Tag is the Meta Data assigned to the Title of your webpage. By default this tag is set to include both the {PageName} and {PageDescription} tokens since this is generally what will be displayed in a search engine results list - so will accurately identify your page and its content to the prospective customer. You may, however, wish to modify this tag to feature only one of the tokens, or perhaps to add some static keywords in as well.

Description Tag

By default, this Tag features only the {PageDescription} token, for obvious reasons. You can, however, add static key words either side of the token to add weight to a particular word/phrase should you require. You could also add the {PageName} token in should you desire, perhaps amidst a line of descriptive text: "This is the {PageName} page on my Audio Book Store - Description: {PageDescription}"

Keywords Tag

Keywords are absolutely essential to your pages' success in search engine listings. Too few keywords, too many keywords, too much repetition within your keywords, the wrong keywords - all of these scenarios will penalize your site's ranking within the search engines and so it is imperative that you take time to ensure the keywords on your site are the optimum combination.

Page Type: Title Pages:

Pages included in this Page Type:

Tokens available for this Page Type:

{TitleName}

This is the name of the audio-book. This token will be replaced with the relevant textual title when the product description page is displayed (where the token is used within that page's meta tags).

{Author}

This token is the author of the audio-book in question. When an audio-book details page is loaded, the {Author} token is replaced with the Author's full name, within those Meta Tags that feature this token.

{Narrator}

This token is the name of the narrator of the audio-book, displayed when a customer views a title description page. This token is automatically replaced with the relevant narrator's name whenever the page is displayed.

{CatBreadcrumb}

The {CatBreadcrumb} token refers to the hierarchical category path to the specific title that the customer is currently viewing. For example, if the customer has browsed through the Drama, and Shakespeare categories before viewing a title, then that title's description page would display the words 'Drama' and 'Shakespeare' in the page's meta data, in place of the {CatBreadcrumb} token - where used.

{CatName}

Similar to, but not to be confused with, the {CatBreadcrumb} token above, this token refers only to the parent category within which this title resides. Using the same example as above, the meta data would display the word 'Drama' only, in place of the {CatName} token, where used.

{TitleDescription}

This token is straightforward in that it refers to the Title Description - the descriptive information about a specific title being viewed by a customer. Where used, this token will be replaced by the descriptive text about the title in question.

Editable Fields for this Page Type:

Title Tag

The Title Tag is the Meta Data assigned to the Title of your webpage. By default this tag is set to include {TitleName}, {Author} and {CatBreadcrumb} tokens since this is generally what will be displayed in a search engine results list - and will accurately identify your page and its content to a prospective customer. You may, however, wish to modify this tag to feature fewer of these tokens, or perhaps to add some static keywords in for added emphasis.

Description Tag

By default, this Tag features only the {TitleDescription} token. You can, however, add static key words either side of the token to add weight to a particular word/phrase should you require.

Keywords Tag

Keywords are absolutely essential to your pages' success in search engine listings. Too few keywords, too many keywords, too much repetition within your keywords, the wrong keywords - all of these scenarios will penalize your site's ranking within the search engines and so it is imperative that you take time to ensure the keywords on your site are the optimum combination. The default keywords for the Title Pages are the tokens: {TitleName}, {Author}, {Narrator} and {CatBreadcrumb}, since these words most succinctly sum up the nature of the information on any title information page.

Page Type: Category Pages:

Pages included in this Page Type:

Tokens available for this Page Type:

{CatName}

The {CatName} is the name of the particular category (or sub-category, where applicable) that the customer is currently viewing. Where this token is used in a meta tag, it will be substituted with the category (or subcategory) name when the page is viewed.

{CatBreadcrumb}

Similar to, but not to be confused with, the {CatName} token above the {CatBreadcrumb} token refers to the hierarchical category path to the category (or sub-category) that the customer is currently viewing. For example, if the customer has browsed through the Drama categories, before selecting the Shakespeare sub-category, then that sub-category's breadcrumb would display the words 'Drama' and 'Shakespeare' in the page's meta data, in place of the {CatBreadcrumb} token - where used. It is the path up-to (and including) the sub-category being viewed.

{CatDescription}

This token is the description of the category (or subcategory) currently being viewed. If you make use of the {CatDescription} token within the meta tags, this token will be replaced with the description text when a customer views a category/sub-category page.

Editable Fields for this Page Type:

Title Tag

The Title Tag is the Meta Data assigned to the Title of your webpage. By default this tag is set to include only the {CatBreadcrumb} token. This gives every category page a title equivalent to the full hierarchical path to the sub-category being viewed at the time. You may wish to augment this token with some static text to make the page title more easily understood in search engine listings.

Description Tag

By default, this Tag features only the {CatDescription} token, for obvious reasons. You can, however, add static key words either side of the token to add weight to a particular word/phrase should you require. If you wanted, you could add some extra, static text to this field (either side of the token). This token, when used in this meta tag field, will be replaced (in the actual page meta data) with the description of the category currently being viewed by the customer.

Keywords Tag

Keywords are absolutely essential to your pages' success in search engine listings. Too few keywords, too many keywords, too much repetition within your keywords, the wrong keywords - all of these scenarios will penalize your site's ranking within the search engines and so it is imperative that you take time to ensure the keywords on your site are the optimum combination. By default, the keywords for the Category Pages are set to a combination of a token and static text: {CatBreadcrumb}, MP3, Audio-books, Download, Audio-book, Audio book. This ensures that the page ranks highly for the static terms, as well as the Category names themselves, within the Category Breadcrumb.

Extra Meta Tags:

If you would like any other words including within your page(s) meta data, simply type them into this box, separating each with a comma (,).

For example, you might wish to focus your pages, generally, on a particular niche (in this example 'business') and so you could include the following words:

business, meetings, productivity, workplace, training

and so on.

Tip: Remember, search engines will spider your pages and determine your ranking based on a number of your site's attributes - including Meta Data. Please ensure you know what you are doing before you make changes to this data which could adversely affect your site's ranking.

Saving/Undoing changes in the "Meta Data" page:

You can make changes to the information within this page by simply editing the text in the fields directly. Once you are happy with the information contained within this page, you can save the information by clicking the button at the bottom of the page, labeled "Save Changes". This saves any changes you may have made.

If you wish to undo the changes you have made in this session (and so, since you last saved your changes) click the button labeled "Undo Changes". This will reset the whole page of Meta Data fields to their values at the time you last saved them (or the default values if you have not made any changes previously).

To completely reset the Meta Data fields back to their default 'factory' settings, you may do so by clicking the button labeled "Reset to Default". This will update all the text fields accordingly. Please note, however, that you must still remember to click the "Save Changes" button after resetting the fields, to commit your changes.