Ann Zerega Website Manager and SEO Specialist

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Ann Zerega

HTML Markup Matters

Fixing HTML Markup for Organic Search

When a company creates a website, they may not be aware of the role HTML (HyperText Markup Language) plays in getting their site noticed.

  • For troubleshooting search performance, the first item on your SEO checklist should be checking the site’s markup.

A large membership website had been migrated from a commercial to an open source Content Management System (CMS). After the migration, the pages and posts were stripped of their H1 tags without them being flagged.

When reviewing this website, I noticed the absence of H1 tags on all pages and posts. Fortunately, there were great developer resources available, and a fix was put in place programatically.

Here’s a breakdown of the project:

  • Development Team
    Encoded page and post titles as H1; pushed changes live in under two weeks.
  • My Part
    Created Web Publishing Guide emphasizing the importance of H2 tags, and trained content creators.
  • Outcome
    14% improvement in Organic Search one month after H1 and H2 tags correctly encoded.

Taxonomy Team Effort – Part Two

Improved User Data –

In my post “Taxonomy Team Effort – Part One“, I described the enormous undertaking by multiple teams to implement a keyword-based taxonomy of over 200 terms. Soon thereafter, I realized the new taxonomy provided opportunities for improved user reporting:

  • Each piece of content was now assigned to one category only eliminating duplicate category data.
  • Each piece of content showed the new category in the post markup.

From the course I completed on Google Tag Manager, I knew data could be retrieved from site markup and aggregated into Google Analytics and custom reports in Google Data Studio.

Here’s a breakdown of the project:

  • Development Team
    The development team created custom ID and variable to retrieve category text from post markup.
  • My Part
    I created tags in Google Tag Manager to record the post category text as a custom dimension on DOM complete. I then created category rollup reports in Google Data Studio using Google Sheets and Google Analytics for a broader look at the topics members were reading.
  • Outcome
    Ad Operations can now report on most popular categories on website to better sell and target ads.

Connie Harwood – VP & Research Director Supply Chain SAPinsider

Best in class is a phrase that describes Ann. I have had the pleasure of knowing Ann from our time at SAPinsider, she manages the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) content and publishing. Ann created excellent documentation guidelines and she always stops to help others – she is professional, and very pleasant to work with. Ann was asked by upper management to take courses to grow her knowledge, she took those in record time and received a promotion for her dedicated work. Ann is top notch and would be a true asset to any organization.

Taxonomy Team Effort – Part One

Flight deck team image

Launching a New Website Taxonomy –

In response to feedback from users, a membership website undertook a large project to implement a keyword-based taxonomy of over 200 terms with the goal to:

  • Create a more intuitive subject grouping
  • Improve organic search
  • Improve ad targeting

This website, however, contained over 4,000 pieces of content that needed to be reorganized into the new taxonomy – not a job for one person or even one team!

Ultimately, the new taxonomy was successfully launched through the coordination of both the content and development teams. Here’s a breakdown of the project:

  • Content Team
    Reviewed over 4,000 pieces of content and assigned each to a new keyword-based taxonomy of over 200 terms.
  • Development Team
    Created an import script to update the 4,000 pieces of content to their new taxonomy, then implemented new taxonomy on site including category filters.
  • My Part (Development Team)
    Created, optimized, and migrated the existing site taxonomy to a new keyword-based taxonomy of over 200 categories.
  • Outcome
    10% increase in organic search traffic and improved user experience.

Why Title Tags and Meta Descriptions Matter for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How Search Engines Read and Process Webpage Content

I love Moz’s definition of search engines as “answer machines“, crawling an enormous amount of data published every day to deliver an answer to your questions. Bloggers alone publish 7.5 million posts per day and the Google Search index contains hundreds of billions of webpages.

Moz says “…title tags are a major factor in helping search engines understand what your page is about, and they are the first impression many people have of your page”.

So when starting a web optimization project, the first task should be examining the site’s title tags and meta descriptions.

Title Tags

Title tags are HTML elements that Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) use to show your page title as a clickable link. They are also the second most important on-page factor for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) per Moz.

Since Google will only display the first 50-60 characters of a title tag on a SERP, you should limit your title tag (which includes the company name), to under 60 characters.

It is also very important that each page have a unique title tag. Most Content Management Systems (CMSs) will alert you to duplicate title tags if you copy a page.

For example, REI’s homepage title tag is 53 characters long. As you can see from the screenshots below, it is rendered completely on the SERP.

REI.com Home Page Title on a Search Engine Results Page
screenshot of REI.com homepage
Page Title HTML Source Code from REI.com Home Page

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are HTML attributes displayed below the title tag hyperlink on the SERP that provide a brief summary of your web page.

Meta descriptions can be of any length, but Google will only display the first 155-160 characters of this attribute.

REI.com Home Page Meta Description Search Engine Results Page

As with title tags, it is important that the meta description on each page is unique.

A Note of Caution

It’s very easy to copy over and retitle pages in some CMSs and completely miss updating the meta descriptions.

This can lead to a situation where you’ve published new content, but search engines WILL see the following mismatch using a produce example:

Honey Crisp Apples | Santa Clara Produce
Honey Crisp Apples are a cross between a Macoun apple and Honeygold apple from the University of Minnesota and have become the most popular apple in the United States

Hass Avocado | Santa Clara Produce
Honey Crisp Apples are a cross between a Macoun apple and Honeygold apple from the University of Minnesota and have become the most popular apple in the United States

In the event a page has no description given, search engines may display the meta description from the site’s homepage.

Where it all comes together – Google Sitelinks

Google sitelinks are an automated SERP that show a customer results Google thinks will be useful. These results are meant to save customers time by allowing them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.

As a bonus, these results command a large amount of space at the top of a customer’s screen. See the sitelink example below for REI.com:

search engine results page REI.com
Google sitelink example for REI.com

Note that each page title and meta description below is unique. Each meta description also contains appropriate keywords such as Women’s, Men’s and Outlet. I will cover the topic of keywords in a future post.

How to Find and Fix

If you’re curious about your company’s search results, open a private browser window and search on your company’s name (not url).

On the sitelinks page, review the titles and descriptions for each page. Are they all unique? Are they all accurate? Could these be keyword optimized?

If not, start a conversation with your web team to get this information updated. Your customers will thank you!