When you building a web page, it makes sense to think about how the search engines will show it in their listings. A well crafted listing can make a big difference in how many clicks your listing gets. For example, if you were presented with these listings, would you automatically pick the first listing or would you pick one of the other two?
The sad thing is that the owner of the top listing has control of what Google shows shows in their listing. The top line of the comes from the <title> tag. This is the tag that sets the text that shows in the title bar at the top of the browser and in the tabs of a browser that has tabs. In the case of the first listing, the page title wasn’t set by the web programmer, so Google refers to their site as “Untitled Document”.
Another mistake some sites make in the <title> tag is loading it with keyword…only. Having good keywords in your title is important, but it is more important to set the title of the page to something that looks good in the SERPS (Search engine results pages). At minimum, it should be the name of your company. Ideally, it should be something that people want to click on.
Google only shows the first 65 characters, so make sure that it fits. I think the most compelling titles have a tag line and the name of the company. Google lists my blog as “Modern Webspace, Inc. | Helpful Tips for Webspace Owners” and my corporate site as “Modern Webspace, Inc. – Sensible Internet Solutions”.
The rest of your listing comes from one of two places. If you have a meta description tag, sometimes the search engine will use that for the body of your listing in the SERPs. When it doesn’t use the meta description tag, it uses the first few lines of content. It is important to have a well written meta description tag and to place a good description of your business at the beginning of your content.
As for meta keywords, most search engines ignore them. Keywords come from the contents of website and the text in links to your site. It doesn’t hurt to use meta keywords, but it doesn’t really do anything for your listing.
When you are designing your website, one of the first things you want to do is decide what you want your Google listing to look like. A top 10 position with a well designed Google listing can be more effective than a #1 placement that is not well designed.