Within CMS, category, and product pages, there will always be the option to specify Page Title, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords, and most importantly, the ability to add content to the page.
If we take a look at a normal
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)—in this case Google—obtained using the search query Magento open source download, we will see that two of these elements are used directly in the result listings (Title and Meta Description):
The code used to display the preceding result is as follows:
<title>Open Source Ecommerce Software & Solutions | Magento</title> <meta name="description" content="Download the Magento Community Edition, our free open source ecommerce software solution for expert developers and enthusiasts!" />
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Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Depending on the search query used, Google may return the meta description, or alternatively, extract a snippet of text from the content that it believes to best represent that page for the given query. The same applies to title tags; when a more specific query is used, the default title tag may be changed to better suit the query.
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For instance, if we perform a search for magento download on Google, instead of the preceding search, we will receive the same page and the same meta description, but a more targeted title tag—try it!
An example of Google returning extracted content rather than the meta description can be seen here (through the search phrase Magento ottoman):
The meta description that is present on the page is:
<meta name="description" content="Ottoman" />
From this, we can see that Google has chosen to return the extracted snippet from the product description, most likely due to the meta description being entirely inadequate for the search term.
The best practices for these elements are well documented in SEO circles, and the following is a brief breakdown of each:
Title: The
titletag should be kept (ideally) to a maximum of 70 to 75 characters. Any title tag longer than this will be truncated in the SERPs to only those first 70 to 75 characters. If we are trying to engage a human being's interest, we need to be able to do that within those first 70 to 75 characters.Meta Description: The same rules apply to the Meta Description field; Google usually only shows approximately 150-160 characters of meta information below the
titletag in the SERPs. A description longer than this may be truncated and the surplus will not be presented to the user.Meta Keywords: It has long been acknowledged that most major search engines choose to ignore the meta keyword tag completely, mainly due to keyword stuffing, which was a common practice in past years. Usually, it is more beneficial to remove this tag altogether than to spend time tailoring keywords for individual pages (please see Chapter 8, Purpose-built Magento Extensions for SEO/CRO, for ways in which we can remove this tag).
Content: This is a contentious subject; however, the accepted guidelines are that 400+ words of unique, quality, and relevant content per page should stand you in good stead with all the major search engines. There are also reports of 2000+ words of quality content providing the best results and resulting in the best rankings. At this time, it is unknown if there is an upper-limit to the amount of content deemed acceptable on any given page. The truth is that it becomes harder to write relevant, quality content the longer that content becomes.
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For more information, please visit:
Content Length (quicksprout.com): goo.gl/WNopcC
Title Tags (moz.com): goo.gl/LM9efj
Meta Descriptions (moz.com): goo.gl/fpgSTi
Meta Keywords (google.com): goo.gl/CJg89b