Metadata, SEO, and SEM

Metadata, sometimes called data about data, should be part of your SEO gameplan. Think of metadata as breadcrumb trails for search engine spiders. Cheat sheets for bots. The essence of your page, MP3, JPG, or PDF; the whole site for that matter. Metadata is a way to convey the meaning of what you're publishing. Make metadata work for you.

The tags you assign to the photos you upload to Flickr (folksonomy) and the entries you write with Blogger are metadata. People search for a specific tag and find your content. Tags like these are visible (external). Other tags are hidden in a file (internal): an HTML file, a MP3, a PDF, etc.

Let's face it, search engines don't really read your web pages. Well, they do but they don't understand it like you and I do. Irony, sarcasm, puns, flirtations, propaganda make search engine spiders' job harder. What can be believed? What's really true.

Metadata is your way to explicitly tell search engines what they're looking at. Don't expect them to figure it out, tell them. Craft your metadata carefully and deliberately, and the search engines will respond accordingly.

Metadata is one SEO tool at your disposal. Always, always take advantage of metadata. Use metadata as another way to establish and reenforce your message and branding.

When you build a website there are many opportunities to use metadata to your advantage. The most obvious are three sections in the head of a page's HTML: the title, keywords, and description. These metatags are part of a well-designed HTML template.

The key is to learn what metatags are available to you. What types of files and documents can metadata be embedded into? How can you edit metadata?

Examples of metadata you can edit include the title, subject, author, and keywords (Document Properties)of Acrobat PDF files, and the title, artist, copyright, genre, and other information stored in the ID3 metadata of MP3 files. Flickr's tags, Blogger's labels, and YouTube's tags are metadata too. Always take advantage of metadata!

Search engines send out spiders, little bots that explore your website and report back to the mother ship. They can't listen to your music, watch your videos, or read your PDFs. They don't really understand your site. They do eat metadata. So feed them! Careful choices made about your metadata will work to your advantage.

Sitemaps like sitemap.xml and ror.xml files are another form of metadata. Update yours every time you update your site.