I am interested in how people handle Keywords in their site? Do you use a multi-line text field, a text string, tags or something else? Do you have one set of keyworsd at a site level that can be overridden for each page?
I know keywords are overlooked by Google but I am putting a base website together to use as a template and was wondering about best practice.
I have a base doctype that has an SEO tab that contains a textstring for the meta title, and multiline textboxes for keywords and description, as well as fields for things like Google Tracking that all the main pages inherit from.
I've seen some sites that have default keywords at the site root, and then use the recursive property for umbraco items so that if it's not set at the current page it goes back up the tree until it finds some. This is OK, but from an SEO point of view it's not ideal, as you may end up with keywords/description that aren't relevant to the current page.
This is how I handle it:
Page Title - if they entered it in the tab, I use that, otherwise I fall back to the page name
Keywords - if they entered them, I use them, otherwise I don't display the tag
Description - if they entered a description I use it, otrherwise I fall back to the first sentence on the page with all the HTML stripped out
Only thing I would like to add is a minor technical detail or what one should call it.
I tend to use the "Tags" datatype for the keywords field, since I think it's easier to handle the keywords this way + you don't need to instruct people that they need to write the keywords seperated with a comma. They just need to tag :-)
Keywords Best Practice
I am interested in how people handle Keywords in their site? Do you use a multi-line text field, a text string, tags or something else? Do you have one set of keyworsd at a site level that can be overridden for each page?
I know keywords are overlooked by Google but I am putting a base website together to use as a template and was wondering about best practice.
Hi Brendan
I always create it as a single text field. Keyswords should be page specific as it tells Google/other search engines (maybe) what this page is about.
I have a base doctype that has an SEO tab that contains a textstring for the meta title, and multiline textboxes for keywords and description, as well as fields for things like Google Tracking that all the main pages inherit from.
I've seen some sites that have default keywords at the site root, and then use the recursive property for umbraco items so that if it's not set at the current page it goes back up the tree until it finds some. This is OK, but from an SEO point of view it's not ideal, as you may end up with keywords/description that aren't relevant to the current page.
This is how I handle it:
Page Title - if they entered it in the tab, I use that, otherwise I fall back to the page name
Keywords - if they entered them, I use them, otherwise I don't display the tag
Description - if they entered a description I use it, otrherwise I fall back to the first sentence on the page with all the HTML stripped out
Hope that helps!
Hi Brendan
The suggestions by Tim and Anders are spot on.
Only thing I would like to add is a minor technical detail or what one should call it.
I tend to use the "Tags" datatype for the keywords field, since I think it's easier to handle the keywords this way + you don't need to instruct people that they need to write the keywords seperated with a comma. They just need to tag :-)
Just my 2 cents.
/Jan
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