metadata

clues for bots

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. Metadata is a way to convey the meaning of what you're publishing.

Examples of metadata that help your SEO efforts: the tags you assign to the photos you upload to Facebook, the tags of your YouTube videos, the hashtags you assign to tweets, all of these are examples of metadata or folksonomy. Now when someone searches for the keywords you assigned to your content (blog entries, online videos, hashtags, etc) your content will be displayed.

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 mean nothing to a search engine spider. They need clues.

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.

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?

As you build a web page add metadata whenever and whereever you can. The most obvious are three sections in the head of a page's HTML: the title, keywords, and description. Other 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 exploit metadata!

Remember: metadata is your friend.