Latest Blog posts from Zarr.com

General tips for getting to the top of search engines

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In this blog post we will be giving you various tips that will help you to get to the top of the search engines. We’ll also give you some factors that are used to rank websites.

Tip 1
Try to purchase a domain name which matches the main search keyword for your website. For a large proportion of one or two word search terms, the first organic search result will be the <keyword>.com or .co.uk. For example:

a. Cheap flights
b. Britney Spears
c. Mortgages trousers
d. Recycle

These domain names can however be very expensive. For example “fly.co.uk” sold for £90,000 in 2007 and “cruises.co.uk” sold for £500,000. Although these are large amounts of money, for an established business it could generate many times this in income without any Pay Per Click and Sponsored link costs.

Tip 2
Ensure that if someone types in “yourdomain.com” that the user gets redirected to www.yourdomain.com. If Google starts to pick up and index pages from both www. And non www. Versions of your website then you could be seen as having duplicated content which in turn will lower your ranking.

Tip 3
Spend an extra few minutes on each page and write a good title tag, meta tag keywords and meta tag description. This will greatly improve your search engine ranking in the long term. If you would like to know how to write good Meta data then refer to a previous post that we did entitled “Optimizing your website using Meta Data”

Some Factors that are used to rank websites:

1. The age of your domain name. The more established your domain name is the higher preference search engines give it

2. When the site was first picked up by the search engines. The sooner the search engines pick up on your website the quicker they can rank it

3. If there are a lot of websites on the same IP address then the search engines may not trust your website and therefore penalise your search engine ranking.

4. If the website has ever had any “dodgy” content on it. If the website has had some dodgy content on it in the past then that will have a negative effect on the ranking

5. The number of times the domain name has changed ownership. If the domain name has changed ownership a lot this can have a negative effect on the sites ranking

6. Where the website is located. If it’s a .co.uk domain name (targeting UK) with the website hosted in the USA this can have a negative impact on your ranking

7. If your website doesn't have good content on it or has anything illegal or not trust worthy on it, this will have a negative impact on your search engine ranking

8. How fresh the content is. If the content on the website is fresh and updated regularly it will be ranked higher than if the content is old and not relevant

9. If the website has a high bounce-rate. i.e. how many people view just one page before leaving the site. If the bounce rate is large (above 65%) this will have a negative impact on your ranking.

10. If the website loads quickly or not. If the website loads quickly then this will have a positive impact on the ranking

11. If the HTML and technical structure of the HTML is “clean”. If the HTML and technical structure of the site is clean then this will improve the sites ranking

12. If the pages have unique title, Meta keywords and Meta description tags. If the Meta tags are unique and specific to the pages content this will improve the ranking.

13. Keywords usage in title tags and URL’s. If you use the keywords in the title tags and URL’s it will help to improve your ranking for those keywords

14. The use of keywords in image ALT and image TITLE tags of images. Using keywords for image alternative tags and image title tags will help to improve your ranking

15. If H1 and H2 tags are used in the structure of the page content. Using H1 and H2 tags in the structure of the page content will improve your ranking

16. If the website has been banned or blocked for using dodgy or banned SEO practices it is likely to be ranked lower

17. If the spelling and grammar of the content is accurate this will have a positive impact on the SEO ranking

18. The more relevant the text in incoming hyperlinks the better the effect it will have on your ranking

19. If you suddenly receive lots of new links to your website in a very short space of time, it would be extremely rare for this to happen organically and therefore if your website does receive a large amount of new inbound links very quickly it will ring alarm bells with the search engines and can impact your ranking.

20. If the text content is similar to pages from other domains it can have a negative impact on your ranking

Search Engine Optimization Tips

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Following on from our previous blog post entitled “Optimizing your website using Meta data”, we have put together a further list of search engine optimisation tips that you can use to help improve your search engine ranking. This blog post will expand on the tips that we gave on writing effective Meta titles, keywords and descriptions.

Search Engine Optimisation Tip 1 - Using a good structure for URL’s (Universal Resource Locators) - Making your websites listing in the search results appealing to people is where good meta title tags and descriptions are very beneficial. The green text at the bottom of the search results is the URL (specific location) of the page that the search engines have chosen as the most relevant for your website.

Tip: Getting your page URL’s in a good structure is much more likely to result in a person clicking on the link. It also makes the link easier to read out to someone or even to type in directly. Below is an example of a good URL structure and a not very good URL structure.

The search result above is in a good structure and is more likely to get clicked on that the structure of the result below. The one below is very obscure and doesn’t give the user any idea.

Ideally a dash should be used to split up the words within the URL, and you could group similar pages together in the same way you would when filing documents on your computer.

Tip: When creating a new webpage within a Zarr developed website, the new page will automatically be given an individual user friendly URL. If you are going to have a lot of pages on your website, try to group similar pages together. For example, for a page about selling online on the zarr website, it has been added to a folder called web design and then titled selling online. The URL for this page is /web-design/selling-online.aspx

Do’s and Don’ts for page URL’s
Do use meaningful names for pages that are relevant to that pages content
Don’t use very long URL’s and also avoid generic names such as “page1.html”
Do group pages into directories/folders to organise your content for you, and also your visitors to know where they are
Don’t duplicate keywords in URL’s
Do use nested directories if needed, e.g. /directory-1/directory-2/ but don’t go down more than 3 levels

Search Engine Optimisation Tip 2 - Having a useful 404 page – When a visitor tries to get to a page on your website that has moved, or no longer exists your web server will send out a “404 page” – this is the status code for a “page not found” page.

This page should try and guide the user back to the right place, or direct them to what they might have been looking for. Try to give them links to some of the main areas on your site, or failing that tell them to choose a menu item. Anything is better than losing a visitor completely.

A good example is: www.zarr.com/this-does-not-exist.aspx and you’ll see it gets redirected to www.zarr.com/site-updated.aspx

Search Engine Optimisation Tip 3 – Get people to link to your website – A key area that search engines use to rank a website is the links to it. The chances are people wouldn’t link to a website unless it has something worthwhile.

In recent years people have abused this by paying to obtain links to their website. This resulted in Google implementing a policy of penalising websites that pay for links. Despite this linking is still very important and there are many free directory sites, blogs and other related websites where you can leave or ask for a link back to your website.

Tip: Simple practices including emailing professional body websites, your customers, your suppliers etc and asking them to add a link from their website to yours. Also leaving comments on other people’s blogs will usually result in a link back to your website.

Search Engine Optimisation Tip 4 – Regularly adding new content to your website – Adding on new pages or extending existing pages is essential to keeping your website’s content fresh in the eyes of the search engines. Website that update their content regularly are more likely to be ranked higher than websites that contain out of date content.

Tip: You should ideally be looking to add at least 1 page of content a week. If you have an ecommerce website then adding a new product through the website would have the same result. For a professional services website, a page could be adding a press release on a new service you are offering.

It can be quite difficult to identify enough topics to write about and add new content about. One way to get around this problem is by having a blog on your website. A blog is effectively an online diary and are not meant to be written formally as you would with a conventional press release. They are more casual and therefore can be written quicker and are more appealing to update regularly. The content of a blog could be your own thoughts on a particular matter, any advice you can give to people or even commenting on a news article.

Tip: Don’t use a free blog such as blogspot.com, as having a URL of mycompany.blogspot.com will not give your website any measurable benefit. Having a URL of www.mycompany.com/blog is a much better solution and quickly improves your rankings and drive increased traffic to your website.

If you would like to find out more about blogs or any of the points touched upon in this article, then please contact Us and a member of our team will be happy to talk to you.

Summarizing Paypal, Google Checkout and Sage Pay as payment processing programs

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In this final post we will be summarizing Paypal, Google Checkout and Sage Pay as payment processing services. In our previous posts we looked at the individual benefits and drawbacks of each service. We will now summarize our findings and give our conclusion on which service we feel is the best and why.

Google checkout and Paypal are quicker to set up and neither have a monthly charge associated with them. They charge you per transaction that you process and therefore if you don’t use the service you won’t be charged. Sage pay on the other hand takes a little longer to set up and requires you to apply for an internet merchant number before you can use the service.

The main problem with Paypal and Google checkout is that they take you away from your website and onto their own payment pages to process transactions. This can look untidy and unprofessional. Sage Pay allows you to create your own payment pages within your website and allows customers to stay on your website throughout the whole checkout process.

Although Sage Pay charges a monthly amount, if you are processing up to 1000 transactions per month it works out much cheaper than both Paypal and Google checkout. For example Google checkout and Paypal charge 3.4% + 20p for every transaction that you process. Sage Pay charges £20 per month to process up to 1000 transactions. This works out as 2 pence per transaction. Therefore if you are going to be processing transactions regularly, Sage Pay is much more cost efficient. In order to get a sage pay account you do need to have an internet merchant account number and your bank will charge you around 2.5% per transaction. Please refer to the table below to see the costs involved for each payment processing program.

Amount to process	Sagepay	Google Checkout	Paypal
£10	£20 flat fee per month	34p + 20p	34p + 20p
£100	£20 flat fee per month	£3.40 + 20p	£3.40 + 20p
£500	£20 flat fee per month	£17 + 20p	£17 + 20p
£1000	£20 flat fee per month	£34 + 20p	£34 + 20p

* Based on processing up to 1000 transactions per month
* Paypal charges 3.4% per transaction + 20 pence charge
* Google Checkout charges 3.4% per transaction + 20 pence charge
* Sagepay charges a £20 flat fee for the month and your acquiring bank will charge you around 2.5% per transaction

In our experience we would recommend using Sage Pay as the main payment processing service. Not only is it far more cost effective, but by allowing you to customize the payment pages and stay on your website throughout the whole checkout process it enables you to give a more professional experience to the customer.

At Zarr we are able to integrate Paypal, Google Checkout or Sagepay into a website. Integrating Paypal or Google checkout can be done very quickly and potentially in the space of an afternoon. Sage Pay does take a little longer as the time involved to process an application can take 2 – 3 days. If you would like to discuss any of these payment methods and how Zarr could help you to integrate any of them into your website then please contact us and a member of our team will be happy to discuss your requirements.

Sage Pay

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Sage Pay Go with Direct integration enables customers to take card details on your own secure servers and then pass them to Sage Pay for authorisation and secure storage in a server-to server session that does not involve redirecting the shopper to Sage Pay’s payment pages.

The advantages of this method means you have complete control over the look and feel of your payment pages. Also from the customers perspective they never leave your website which helps to give the impression that the site is secure and professional.

In order integrate with Sage pay in this way it does require you to comply to strict guidelines to ensure that you are collecting, storing and transferring card data in a secure way. It also requires a 128-bit SSL certificate to secure your payment pages.

Fees
Sage Pay charge £20 per month for up to 1000 transactions per quarter and for merchants processing more than 1000 transactions per quarter, each transaction is charged at 10p with a minimum charge of £20 per month.

Refunds
Using my Sage Pay console you can refund the full or part of a transaction amount, as well as void a transaction. You can only make a refund to the same card details as the original transaction. You can’t refund if the card has expired or if the authorisation was not taken via sage pay. You can only void a transaction that hasn’t been sent for settlement. Voiding the transaction will cancel the transaction and not include it within the daily bank settlement file.

Chargeback’s
Sage Pay uses 3D secure authentication, which is an additional security measure that has been introduced by Visa and MasterCard as a more secure method of authenticating the shopper at the time of the transaction. The advantage of this is that as a vendor is the liability is shifted if the transaction later turns out to be fraudulent and you will not be responsible. This reduces the risk of chargeback’s however you need to double check with your merchant on any occasions that you believe the liability should have been shifted. There are also some cards that aren’t part of the scheme and as yet and there are no similar alternatives.

Setup Time
In order to setup a Sage Pay account you will first need to get an internet merchant account number. In order to get an Internet Merchant Account number you’ll need to apply for one with an acquiring bank. They may charge you for their services and there may be a sign-up fee of around £200 and day-to-day charges, which may be a fixed fee in the case of debit card transactions or a percentage of each transaction for credit cards. Normally it takes between 24 and 48 hours however there are some providers who can approve an internet merchant account in less than 24 hours.

Once you have had your internet account number approved, you will need to apply for an account. This will consist of filling in an online form covering your company details, contact details, merchant accounts, services, technical and billing. Once you have confirmed all your details to Sage Pay, they will confirm that the account has been created and that the account is ready for testing. Once you have completed all the necessary tests, sage pay will automatically set your account live and you can start processing payment through Sage Pay.

Paypal as a payment processing service

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Paypal allows customers to pay or get paid quickly and easily without sharing any financial information. As Paypal don’t share any financial information with sellers or retailer’s customers are better protected against fraud. Also because you don’t have to type in your card details each time you pay, it makes the checkout process a lot faster.

Paypal do take you to their own payment pages and therefore away from your website, however Paypal do have options to customise the payment pages with your corporate colours and logo. They also have an auto return facility that brings customers straight back to your website after they have paid.

Paypal also accepts multiple currencies, including: US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling, Yen, New Zealand Dollars, Swiss Francs, Hong Kong Dollars, Singapore Dollars, Swedish Kronor, Danish Kroner, Polish Zloty, Norwegian Kroner, Hungarian Forint, Czech Koruna, Israeli Shekels and Mexican Pesos. Paypal allows the seller to hold one currency balance and still accept payments in multiple currencies. Buyers can pay for purchases in their selected currency and the payment is automatically converted so the seller receives payments in their selected currency.

Fees
Paypal will charge you a transaction fee for every transaction that you process. The rate you will be charged will depend on the amount you processed during the prior calendar month. The table below gives you the current rates.

0 – 1,500                   = 3.4% + 20p
1,500.01 – 6,000         = 2.9% + 20p
6,000.01 – 15,000      = 2.4% + 20p
15,000.01 – 55,000     = 1.9% + 20p
55,000 +                    = 1.4% + 20p

Refunds
You can refund the entire amount of a transaction or portions of it. If you issue a refund within 60 days, the original transaction fee for receiving the payment is credited to your account. For partial refunds, you are credited a percentage of the original transaction fee based on the refunded amount. When you issue a refund after 60 days, your original transaction fee for receiving the payment is not credited to your account.

Chargeback
PayPal places a temporary hold on the chargeback amount from the seller's PayPal balance (the funds are frozen).

The seller and PayPal can work together to dispute the chargeback with the buyer's credit card company. While the chargeback is being disputed, PayPal will debit the seller’s account for the amount in question. If PayPal and the seller ultimately win the chargeback dispute, the credit card company will reimburse PayPal for the chargeback, and PayPal will transfer the recovered funds back to the seller.

Setup Time
In order to setup a Paypal account you will be required to create a Business account. This will first require you to fill in all of your business details and bank account information. Finally once you agree to the terms and conditions you will be able to process payments through Paypal.

Dont loose your domain name like Ryanair did

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Imagine if your domain name suddenly stopped working - your website would be inaccessible and customers would not be able to buy from you and no emails would reach you. It could cost you thousands of pounds in lost revenue and inconvenience very quickly.

This happened to Ryanair this afternoon. Nominet who oversee all .UK domain names suspended the Ryanair.co.uk domain name as they hadn't paid their renewal fee (see screen shot to right).

If you typed in www.ryanair.co.uk to a browser you got an general "website not found" error screen. If you sent an email, it bounced back immediately. Ryanair also "encourage" passengers flying to check-in online before they fly rather than pay to check-in at the airport. If the thousands of people flying with them this afternoon tried to check-in they wouldn't have been able to - very frustrating I would expect.

So why did Ryanair not renew their domain name when it expired on 11th August 2009? Probably an oversight, and for the few pounds a year it cost to reserve/renew a domain name, I'm sure the loss in revenue was many thousands of pounds more than that. Plus the embarassment - although they do love PR!

Nominet give domain owners a few months after a domain expires and tries to chase them to remind them of payment. If they don't want to renew, then thats fine, but rather than loosing a domain name completely, the domain stays active for a few months before being suspended - and then a few weeks afterwards it gets released back into the public domain for someone else to reserve - on a first come first served basis.

For all the domain names that Zarr oversee for our customers, we ensure that domain names do not expire so that things like the above do not happen.

We ensure that domain names that are wanted are set to auto-renew - something that Ryanair IT staff could have done in 30 seconds.

Zarr provide more than just web design. We have an extensive background in developing and supporting websites and help our customers keep their online businesses running 24x7. Ryanair, if you want a more reliable company to look after your domain names to avoid embarassments like today, give us a call on +44 1788 820900!

[Updated 22:05] I notice that someone has got their credit card out and paid for the domain name to be renewed so passengers can now get to the Ryanair.co.uk website again!

Comparing Google Checkout, Paypal and Sage Pay

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Over the next few weeks we will be comparing 3 of the most popular payment processing services. We will look at the advantages and disadvantages of each from the merchant’s perspective. We’ll give you a breakdown of the fees, refund costs, charge back process, set up requirements and how long it takes to get an account set up. Finally we will give you a summary of all the services and which one we recommend. We will break this down into 4 sections, with a new section being released each week. The sections and the order they will be released in are as follows:

Part 1 – Google Checkout
Part 2 – Paypal
Part 3 – Sage Pay
Part 4 - Summary

Google Checkout
Google checkout allows customers to purchase products quickly and securely using just a single username and password. Also if you do take payments using Google checkout, your search engine listings will be highlighted with the Google checkout badge which will encourage existing Google checkout customers to click on your ad.
One disadvantage of using Google checkout is that the payment pages will take customers away from your website to process the transaction on the Google Checkout payment pages. This can look a little unprofessional and put people off purchasing through your website. Also Google checkout only accepts US Dollars or British Pounds. It also defaults all payments to the currency of where your business address is registered, therefore you can’t display or process payments in other currencies.

Fees
Google checkout will charge you a transaction fee for every transaction that you process. The rate you will be charged will depend on the amount you processed during the prior calendar month. The table below gives you the current rates.

Monthly Sales Through
Google Checkout Fees Per Transaction

Less than £1500 3.4% + £0.20

£1500 - £5999.99 2.9% + £0.20

£6000 - £14999.99 2.4% + £0.20

£15000 - £54999.99 1.9% + £0.20

£55000 or more 1.4% + £0.20

There is no Setup, monthly or gateway fees and you won’t be charged to transfer funds from your Google Checkout account to your bank. Google Checkout processes Visa (including Visa Electron), MasterCard and Maestro (including Switch/Solo).

Refunds
Once you issue a refund, the refund cannot be cancelled. Google will send a refund notification email to the buyer. Google will return the variable portion of the transaction fee (1.5%) however they will retain the flat fee (15p)

Chargeback
Google uses proprietary fraud detection technology to protect sellers from unwarranted chargeback’s. In cases where you are found liable for a chargeback you will be charged the full amount of the chargeback plus an additional £7 chargeback fee.

Setup time
In order to setup a Google checkout account you will be required to first create a Google account. Once you have created a Google account you will then be required to fill in an online registration form. This will require you to fill in all your business information and agree to the terms and conditions. Once you have completed all this information you will then be ready to process payments through Google checkout.

Zarr have an extensive experience of developing ecommerce websites, so if you would like to find out more about getting Google Checkout integrated into your new or existing website, then please contact us.

Phishing attack hits Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail email accounts

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Recently in the press have been reports of 30,000 names and passwords from Hotmail, Google and Yahoo web mail accounts being posted online on a forum.

How these account details were found out appears to be from an industry wide phishing scam which is spreading further according to experts.

Phishing is a diverse and sophisticated set of methods that trick people into parting with their personal data – login details, passwords, bank account details etc. Usually a phishing attempt will direct a user to a “spoof” website that is designed to look like a legitimate site, but will capture anything the user enters. Unbespecting visitors may enter their genuine account details which are recorded by the hackers.

Victims may also have been part of a key logging attack. This is a piece of computer code which simply stores each and every key stroke on your keyboard. This software can be hidden within an email attachment, be downloaded from a “spoof” website or masquerade itself as another kind of program.

Tips to avoid being phished?
First of all you need to make sure that you have up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware software installed. Make sure that you use a firewall, spam filter and security software that is active while you are browsing. Its also a good idea to ensure your computer is set to install Windows Updates automatically.

Always be wary of the source of emails and the websites that they may attempt to send you to. If you are going to be passing over sensitive information make sure that the web address is located on a secure server. The start of the address should read https:// with the s standing for secure.

Try to avoid keeping any passwords on your computer and disclosing them to anybody. Before you open an email attachment or save one, be sure that it is from a genuine source. If you are in any doubt then don’t open it.

If you are accessing banking details from a computer that is used by other people, ensure you do not click on “save” password, as another user could gain access. Also regularly check your bank statements and receipts carefully to ensure there are no fraudulent transactions.

What Zarr can do for you
The majority of phishing occurs from emails and Zarr can provide you with extensive virus, phishing and spam filtering for your email. To illustrate how good it is, each day we handle over 700,000 emails with less than 3% of these being genuine emails. The remainder are viruses, trojans, phishing emails or just plain old spam.

The beauty of this service is that it doesn't require you to do any changes to your Outlook and it can cost less than £30 a year per employee - a small price to pay for that added security and piece of mind.

To find out more about how Zarr can help you to improve the security of your email, please contact us.

Securing websites and stopping online fraud

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Fraud committed in the UK using plastic cards has fallen by 23% in the first half of this year. Internet, phone and mail order fraud levels have all dropped for the first time and experts believe this is a result of fraudsters realising that they can be more successful if they target foreign-issued cards and especially those without chip-and-pin protection.

Chip-and-pin cards were first introduced in the UK in 2004 and they instantly had an impact by reducing fraud levels in the two years that followed. In 2007 and 2008 we saw fraud levels increase to a new high of £610m, with this peak coming at the end of 2008. However this new report by the industry body Financial Fraud Action UK seems to show that the problem is starting to come back under control.

One reason for this reduction in fraud over the internet, phone or mail order has been due to the introduction of online payment tools, such as MasterCard Secure Card and Verified by Visa which make the user enter a second pin at the point of purchase.

How has Zarr’s websites adapted to these changes?

Zarr develops web solutions that incorporate the latest online payment tools. PCI DSS compliance is a set of comprehensive requirements for enhancing data security. It is designed to help organizations protect customer account data. As of the 1st of October 2009 PCI DSS compliance will become compulsory and any company that isn’t compliant is not only risking a data breach but also may incur huge fines. Zarr’s websites are fully PCI DSS compliant and meet the highest levels of data security.

Another feature that Zarr uses to prevent the risk of fraud is 3D Secure. This technology has been designed to reduce the possibility of fraudulent card use by authenticating the cardholder at the time of the transaction and subsequently reducing exposure to disputed transactions and chargeback’s. Customers purchasing through one of Zarr’s ecommerce websites will have to pass a 3D secure check in order for the transaction to be successful.

To find out more about Zarr’s ecommerce solutions and what we can do for you please contact us.

Optimizing your website using Meta data

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For small companies who don’t have a large marketing budget, it can prove very difficult to generate website visitors. One effective way of increasing the number of visitors is to optimize the company’s website. The better optimized the website, the higher it will appear in the search engine results and the more likely visitors will click through.

With over 200 factors that are taken into consideration as to where a website appears in the organic search engine results, successful SEO comes down to making small tweaks and improvements that when combined with other improvements will make a big difference to where your website appears. Here we are going to concentrate on Meta Data and how to effectively write it.

What is Meta data?
Meta data consists of 3 parts, a title, description and keywords. They are placed into the code of each web page to help search engines effectively index. The more specific and accurate the Meta data (title, keywords and description), the more effective the search engines will be able to rank your web pages and improve your listing.

How to write effective Meta data
In order to write effective Meta data, it needs to accurately reflect the content of the page. Therefore the first step is to review the page content and list out the main key words and phrases. Try to choose keywords and phrases that you think people might type into the search engines, to find information regarding that pages content. This will be the base for the next stage which is to write the Meta data (Title, Keywords and Description) for each web page.

Title: The title tag should be no more than 80 characters in length. It should tell both the visitor and also the search engines the topic of that webpage. Note: The meta title is the most important of all three pieces of meta data, it needs to clearly explain the content of the page and will often be the same title that search engines will use to list your webpage.

Tip: For the home page of your website you can include additional information regarding your business, such as where you are located and the services you offer. By making this more informative you increase the chances of people clicking on your link in the search results.

Keywords: You should list out all the keywords in priority order that best reflect the pages content. Start with the most important keyword and finish with the least, separate each keyword or key phrase with a comma. Using approximately 10 words will be a lot more effective than having a long list of keywords. Never use keywords that aren’t specific to the pages content, but instead use keywords that match (actual words) the content on each individual page.

Best and worst practices for meta tag keywords:
1. Make the meta tag keywords relevant to the content of that page
2. Don’t leave meta tags with nothing in – or include terms such as “to be filled in later” or “new page”
3. Do not repeat keywords more than once in the meta tag keywords
4. Using 10 – 15 keywords is an ideal amount to use
5. List the keywords in lower-case

Description: The Meta description is a one or two sentence summary of the key points within the content of the page. It needs to be interesting, unique and highlight key words from the content. You should look to write no more than 255 characters. The search Engine will decide whether to use the meta tag description or take an extract of content for your page when listing your website.

Best and worst practices for meta tag descriptions:
1. Make meta tag descriptions relevant to the content of that page
2. Don’t leave meta tags with nothing in, or to include terms such as “to be filled in later” or “new page”
3. Try not to repeat keywords more than once in the meta tag description
4. Don’t make a meta tag description more than 255 characters (Google will only cut it short anyway)

Research into search engine placement, shows that 8 out of 10 times search engine listings dissuade web searchers from clicking on poorly written Meta titles and descriptions. Therefore writing interesting Meta data that engages the user and directly relates to the page content will dramatically improve the chances of you generating free organic search engine traffic.