SEO Best Practice Recommendations
Meta Data Best Practices
Each page of the website has a place where page information, also known as Meta Data, can be entered. This sets up each page as a potential landing page as opposed to focusing solely on the public home page.
Page Title
This area tells the search engines what the topic of the particular page is. See the example below.
Titles should be short & informative phrases, separated by a vertical dash ( | )
It is best practice to keep your page title to 50-60 characters.
Only 50-60 characters will display in Google followed by an ellipsis.
Each page should have a unique title to aid search engines in distinguishing between multiple pages on the
Consider adding geographical keys to your page title to enhance searches for your specific area.
AVOID: vague titles or those with no relation to the page & titles that are too lengthy
Page titles will be displayed to the end user as the first line in an organic search listing
This is updated for each unique page in the “edit details” section, under “Title (Optional)”.
Menu Title
This area will update the name of the page as it is listed in the site’s navigation.
Please Note: This information is used to manage the menu section titles. These titles may not always be used within your site's templates. The site design itself will dictate whether this element is used within your sites markup.
This is updated when setting up your /navbar file.
Meta Description
This area gives search engines a summary of what the page is about. This is the description that you want to show up in the search result listing and should be written in the voice of all other marketing.
Descriptions should be a sentence or two in length.
The best practice is to keep between 150-160 characters
These should contain keywords, but not in a list, instead, they should be sprinkled into a full sentence.
Each needs to be unique.
Example: Located in Cincinnati, Ohio, our dedicated coaches, state-of-the-art facilities, and supportive community create an ideal environment for athletes to thrive. Join us and take your skills to the next level with ABC Community College's women's basketball program.
This is updated for each unique page in the “edit details” section, under “Lead-in (Optional)”.
Search Tags
This information is not used for Search Engine Optimization, rather for internal searches of the website. This field can be ignored when working on SEO.
Proper Use of Heading Tags
Proper heading tag usage is a great tool to help end users navigate through the content on the site more easily. Using heading tags in the proper place can also drive SEO by allowing you to place keyword-dense content in areas that search engines consider ‘high-value’.
Heading 1
Should only be used one time per page.
Every page should have a Heading 1.
Should serve as a way to state the topic of the page.
This is typically the largest font on the page.
Ex: Women’s Basketball at ABC Community College
Heading 2
Should be used as an introduction to further describe the information on the page.
Every page should have a Heading 2.
This is typically the second largest font on the page.
Ex: National Championship Women’s Basketball at ABC Community College
Heading 3
Should be used to break out subsections.
This is typically larger than that paragraph text and helps draw the end user to specific sections they may be looking for on a page.
Not necessary to have a Heading 3 on every page.
Use this when needed to help break up large sections of content.
Heading 4-6
Use each of these to break up the content further.
It is not necessary to use these if your content does not call for it.
Need help writing your page titles and meta descriptions? Check out PrestoAi to help maximize your information.