Meta-data

There are literally millions of pages on the internet, so how are users going to locate yours? Primarily, this is achieved through the use of search engines, such as Yahoo!, which enable users to locate information based on search criteria. Approximately 50% of the search engines on the market today rely on meta-data to determine if your pages are relevant to what is being searched. These search engines will locate and rank pages based on the meta-data that you provide for each page.

Meta-data is page-specific blocks of text, normally hidden from general browsers, which the search engines use to classify the page on the internet. Meta-data effectively describes the page to the search engines. To get a high rating, thereby listing your website or page higher than others in the search results, you need to add meta-data to all important pages. Repeating keywords throughout the document will also increase your rating.

In SilverStripe CMS there are three meta-tags that make up the collection of meta-data. These are: Page Title, Description and Keywords.

1. Click on the Site Content icon  to display the Site Content window
2. Locate or add the required page (for more information, refer to Finding a Page or Adding a Page)
3. Click on the page, in the My Site pane, to display the contents and properties in the Edit Page pane
4. Click on the Content tab in the Edit Page pane, then click on the Meta-data sub-tab
   
   The URL and three meta-tag fields are displayed. Meta-tags are looked at below. For more information on URLs, refer to Page URLs…
   
5. Click in one of the three meta-tag fields and type the meta-tag text
   
   Use the table below to assist you with the meta-tags:

Meta-tag Name	Description
Title	This is the page title (also called meta-title) and will typically appear in the title bar at the top of the browser window, preceding the name of the browser being used e.g.
Description	This is a basic (less than 100 characters) description of your page. Some search engines show this when the page is listed in a search result
Keywords	Here you can enter a list of words, separated by commas, which characterise the page