Item Page Meta Data / Search Engine Information

Meta data / Search Engine Information is the information that is included on a web page that is invisible to the online user, but is visible to a search engine. It is designed to explain to a search engine what a web page is about.

Meta data or Search Engine Information is not visible on the website itself but is used by some search engines and directories to gain information about the website in order to index (catalogue) it correctly. Different search engines use metadata differently and some don’t use it at all.

The website will automatically produce metadata for your product, based on the title and short description you provide for the product.  So unless you need to specifically tweak this information, eg based on the recomendations of an SEO expert, you may not need to set anything in the metadata fields.

 

Read an article on the Zeald website to Find out more about Meta Data

How to Insert Product / Item Page Meta Data

  1. In the administration end of the website, click on the Items tab
    items
     
  2. You will see the Item Tree. Locate the item category page or item page to which you wish to add or edit meta data
    Edit_Category_Wheelers_Books.gif
    OR
    Edit_Item_Wheeler_Books.gif
     
  3. Click Edit Item or Edit Category
  4. Scroll down to the Search Engine Information section at the bottom of the page
    Meta_Data_area.gif
  5. Type in the Page Title – it should:
    • be attractive to visitors
    • be relevant to the actual content of the individual page
    • have most important words at the start
    • use relevant phrases from keyword research wherever possible
    • be 40 – 95 characters long, including spaces
    e.g.
    Block Printing by Susie O'Reilly – Art Books – Wheeler's Books NZ
    Product_Page_Title_Wheelers_Books.gif
  6. The Page Description should be:
    • 180 characters long, including spaces. (Maximum 250)
    e.g.
    Buy Art books from Wheeler's Books. New Zealand's largest range of children's books, picture books and young adult novels at the cheapest prices
    Product_Page_Description_Wheelers_Books.gif
     
  7. Type in the Page Keywords – it should:
    • use full phrases separated by a comma and a space
    • use phrases that also appear on actual page
    • must be unique to that page
    • not repeat a single word more than 3 times
    • not repeat phrases
    • be no more than 300 characters long, including spaces
    e.g.
    Block Printing, books, Susie O'Reilly, 0750206829, novels, childrens books, kids books, young adult books
    Product_Page_Keywords_Wheelers_Books.gif

     
  8. Select the Page Priority from the dropdown box – make this High if this is a relevent page for first time visitors to see, or Low if you deem this page less relevent. Very High should be reserved for the Homepage.
    Page_Priority_Wheelers_Books.gif
    NOTE:  Do note that a page's priority only shows the relevance of a specific page (in comparison to other pages within your site), and has nothing to do with the page's metadata or your website's rankings.  This option will only guide search engine bots to know which of your website's pages should be listed first.  For instance, if you set your homepage's priority as Really High, search engines will index your homepage above other related pages.  With that said, use website priorities with an ounce of caution.  If you set all pages as high priority, this will confuse search engines bots with which one to prioritise first among all your website's pages.    

     
  9. Click the OK button to save these changes
    OK_button.gif
For ecommerce or catalogue websites featuring many hundreds of products it can be time consuming and tedious to create each of the various Search engine information elements such as Image alternative text, Meta titles, Meta Descriptions etc.
For this very reason Zeald have produced the Element Template feature which allows the website administrator to create a template and have the website system generate the information automatically.  Find out how to use Element Templates