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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.

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.

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:

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!

Perfect World vs Real Life

Considerable time and effort goes into creating white papers and solution PDF documents for company websites.

In a perfect world, high value content like solution briefs or white papers would be optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and HTML landing pages created to showcase them.

In real life, solution briefs and white papers get published at the last minute, the evening before a product launch.

Haste Makes Poor SEO

When a user opens up a PDF document online, it creates a non-navigable path for your user with no call to action, or way to measure clicks.

PDF documents can also be very slow to load on both desktop and mobile sites, which can lead to user frustration and increased bounce rate.

Once a PDF document is online, the PDF document link can become broken if the exact file path is not maintained, leading to a poor user experience and lost business opportunities.

Improve SEO and Keep Your Sanity

If your team has the time, optimize PDFs before they’re released, create landing pages for the high value content, and measure page views after launch.

However, if your team is short-handed, the right kind of file download software can automate some of that process by:

• Automatically creating a landing page for your PDF file where you can add meta information.
• Adding a “nofollow” link to the document download button so search engines don’t index the full path to a PDF, preventing link rot.

For WordPress sites, the WordPress Download Manager plugin is a good option for file management.

PDF files can be helpful to your site’s SEO; treat them like the precious unicorns they are. 🦄

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Your website is a great resource for existing and potential customers.

Unlike a brochure or a slide deck, your website can contain the latest information, is available 24/7, and is easily accessed from anywhere.

• 66% of B2B buyers said it is very important to have a website that speaks directly to industry needs and shows relevant expertise. (Forbes)
• Nine out of ten B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on purchasing decisions. (CMO Council)

Most people rely on search engines to guide them through their research process instead of going directly to a site.

Therefore, your website needs to be constructed so search engines can help find your site for your customers.

Here’s a quick guide to creating web pages that your customers and Search Engines will find useful.

Titles

It’s important to remember that people rarely read web pages in full, so it’s important that a page title be descriptive and concise.

Google displays the first 50 to 60 characters of a title tag, which is displayed not only in search results, but also in web browsers and social networks.

In the example below, including the words “from Scratch in” in the title pushed the word “Guide” off the search results page.

Heading Tags

Heading tags (H1, H2, H3 … H6) in a web page markup lay out the hierarchy of the page. They help search engines, screen readers and your readers how blocks of content are connected.

Snippets

A web page “snippet” is automatically created from page content or can be configured using plugin software such as Yoast SEO on WordPress.

Google will sometimes use meta description tags to create snippets if they think it gives a better summary of what a page is about.

NOTE – If your website supports cloning of pages or posts, be sure to update the <meta> description tag when you create your new page – otherwise you’ll have duplicate meta descriptions which will impact search!

For example search engines will see your duplicated pages like this:

• Apples web page > Meta Description = We have Honey Crisp apples!
• Mangos web page (copied from Apples web page) > Meta Description = We have Honey Crisp apples!

Very confusing for a search engine and customers trying to find mangos.