Meta Tags

[cinelson]

I have a website that I've tried to optimize myself, my problem is that I have duplicate title and keyword tags on every page, because I don't know how to make them unique for each page, I just added the tags on the header which makes them appear on everypage. I'm afraid I'll get penalized for having so many duplicate tags, or that the website will never be as competitive due to this issue. Does anyone know what I need to do?
Website is Gia's Wedding Store Home Page, Wedding Accessories, Wedding Party Favors, Wedding Gifts

[crankydave]

First, contact your tech support. If you cannot add unique meta information, then don't use the tags at all. SE's will use text from your page instead. Also make sure you're using unique page titles.

Short of that, you would need to change platforms.

Dave

[TechEvangelist]

You also need to learn how to properly use the HTML title tag.

"Gia's Wedding Store Home Page" is not the best way to start an HTML title tag.

I agree with crankydave. If you cannot set up unique meta tags, then do not use them. If you cannot set up unique HTML title tags for each page, then either get it fixed or find an e-commerce solutions that does allow it.

[chandrika]

Are you using php to include the headers on the html page, as the way I get round this, is to either make the meta tags variables in the php to pulled from relevant place in database, or use two header includes, one before and one after the variable metatags, so that you edit the actual meta tags within each unique page

It is definitely better to have uniques keywords and descriptions for each page in description.

[cinelson]

Unfortunately I don't know what php is, I actually don't know much about html, I've learned a lot but I don't know coding so it's difficult, for now I am deleting the tags so that they don't appear duplicate.

Thanks

[google junky]

Check this information out and see if it helps
ProStores Tip: Meta Tags ProStores Tips and Tutorials - One Take Media

There was also a link in the article that showed and example

Good luck,
Google Junky

[zegron]

Hi cinelson,

Thats my blog that was linked here, I hope you find it useful. I though I'd elaborate a little here.

A ProStore site CAN be configured with unique meta description and keyword tags. (i tend not to use the meta keyword tag as its almost totally useless for seo and completely useless for increasing your ranking.)

The code applies a logic statement that says, "If the page already has a meta description/keyword/s specified for it show them otherwise show this text." the directive code is for pages that don't have meta tags text for them and you want to use something other than the default text you specified.

You can get even more complex if you want if you know how to program in SSML. I've got Sporting Goods and School Spirit Apparel | ForSports to insert the category description text as the meta description as well for categories and subcategories. But on item pages it uses the ProStores default. But again you can configure that too if you want. There are a lot of different ways to configure it if you know how. :-)

The code I posted in my blog is as follows:

On the header template, replace default code that looks something like this:



<ss:if test="$page.hasMetaKeywords()">

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="$page.meta.keywords">

</ss:if>



And replace it with something like this:



<ss:choose>

<ss:when test="$page.hasMetaKeywords()">

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="$page.meta.keywords">

</ss:when>

<ss:otherwise>

<meta name="keywords" content="default keywords here used whenever keywords are not defined for a template">

</ss:otherwise>

</ss:choose>



And then add tags that look like this to each of the templates where you want custom Meta keywords:



<ss:directive name="page.meta.keywords" value="this page specific custom meta keywords for page x"/>



You do not need add this to the Product Detail template. It already includes code that allows you to manipulate product Meta keywords and descriptions through the Product Information page in store administration.



You can apply the same logic to the Meta description content. Replace the default code that looks like this:



<ss:if test="$page.hasMetaDescription()">

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="$page.meta.description">

</ss:if>



With code that looks like this:



<ss:choose>

<ss:when test="$page.hasMetaDescription()">

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="$page.meta.description">

</ss:when>

<ss:otherwise>

<meta name="description" content="default description here used whenever it is not defined for a template">

</ss:otherwise>

</ss:choose>



And then add tags that look like this to each body template you want to have a customized Meta description:



<ss:directive name="page.meta.description" value="this page specific custom meta description for page x"/>

[furnitureboy]

Does each web page need to have different meta tags or should they alljust have your key search terms in?

Would love some advice on this matter.

[zegron]

Are you referring to a ProStores site? or just in general? This thread seems to be for this particular person's site which runs on the ProStores E-commerce software.

In ProStores each product has a section in the admin page where you can enter in specific keywords and automatically ProStores pulls the first 200 characters of your product description and places them into the meta description for that page. Its all done dynamically.

[cinelson]

Hi Zegron,
I tried doing the first part of what you suggest and it keeps giving me an invalid code, I replaced <ss:if test="$page.hasMetaKeywords()">

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="$page.meta.keywords">

</ss:if>
with the one you provided and it completely distorted the site.

[zegron]

Can you copy and paste the error message it gave you here, then revert to your Baseline, you did save one before you made changes right?

If not just go ahead and delete the code. Once I look at the error message I can tell you whats wrong. I have the code live in 6 sites right now.

[jen.bas]

Hi,

Here's some checklist about meta tags..

- The header sections of each page should be different.

- Each header section contains instances of the main keyword for the site, and the main keyword for the page

- Page Title is different on each page

- Main Keyword field is different on each page

- Meta Description is short and concise; it includes main keyword at least twice and other objective keywords at least once

- Meta Keywords are different on each page

[admonharr]

Crankydave said the best. The search engines pick up text "relevant" text from the page itself but do make the titles unique. Which means your content should be properly optimized.

[cinelson]

Hi Zegron,

I was actually doing it wrong, I did go ahead and tried on a different site and it work, will be doing it on my site now.

Thanks

[zegron]

Great! I'm glad it worked for you!