How To Write Effective Meta Content For Large Websites

First of all, when I say ‘large websites’ I’m talking 250+ pages, at which point it really becomes difficult to manually go through and write niche meta content for every single page.  When I say ‘meta content’ I am of course referring to the title and meta description, though the now seldom-used meta keywords can still fit into it if you really want them to.

Setting Up The Base Framework

The amount of work involved in writing meta content for a large site is immense, and as such is takes a very long time to do (no matter which way you choose to go about it). But what happens with the rest of your site while you’re writing all this content? You certainly can’t just leave it sitting there with no page titles or descriptions, so you need to insert a placeholder or at least something to do the job while you get the really good stuff written.

Enter the ‘base meta framework’ (a generic term which I assure you I invented and doesn’t have any greater meaning).

The framework itself consists of a dynamic statement, in this case in PHP and one which I have used before in my how to: SEO a forum post. (In this case  the meta desciption field is used, but this can be applied to title/description/keywords easily enough)

<?php
if (isset($StaticDesc)) {
echo $StaticDesc;
} else {
echo $ProductName . ‘ available in bulk online for free home delivery. Also view our other ‘ . $CategoryName . ‘ products and ‘ . $PromotionName . ‘ deals! ‘ $ProductName . ‘ from ‘ . $SiteName . ‘.’;
}
?>

This statement would sit directly inside your meta description tag, so something like this:

<meta name=”description” content=”<?php //some dynamic statment here ?>” />

Confused? Here’s The Explanation

What the statement does is simple, but clever: In the first two lines it checks to see if a static description has been set (defined by the $StaticDesc variable), this would hypothetically be a field in your admin area which you could go through and fill out page by page to write an optimal description for each page. If this static description field has some content, it places it there ‘else’ it places a new statement in the meta description tag (defined in the second half of the php statement above).

The query draws a number of variables from the database to construct a meta description by itself which will be different for every product. For a page about wooden spoons, the above statement might produce something like this:

Wooden Spoons available in bulk online for free home delivery. Also view our other Kitchen Accessory products and Christmas Kitchenware deals! Wooden Spoons from The Kitchen Accessory Store.

It isn’t perfect, and it certainly won’t be 100% gramatically correct for all pages – but it does do the job, and it does include relevant key phrases and related content, as well as sticking (roughly) to the meta description guideline of 150 characters.

Once you have this statement in place, you will effectively have a great starting point for however many thousand pages you have, with relatively little work.

Getting Advanced

Of course if you’re any good at PHP you’ll be able to customise this even further (PHP wizards correct me if I get this wrong), and do something like:

<?php
if (isset($StaticDesc)) {
echo $StaticDesc;
} elseif $CatId = 2 {
echo $ProductName . ‘ available on the phone, call us for special deals. Also view our other ‘ . $CategoryName . ‘ beauty products and ‘ . $PromotionName . ‘  beauty deals! ‘ $ProductName . ‘ from ‘ . $SiteName . ‘.’;
} elseif $CatId = 5 {
echo $ProductName . ‘ specialist woodword products + tools, and amazing ‘ . $CategoryName . ‘ products and ‘ . $PromotionName . ‘ deals! ‘ $ProductName . ‘ from ‘ . $SiteName . ‘.’;
} else {
echo $ProductName . ‘ available in bulk online for free home delivery. Also view our other ‘ . $CategoryName . ‘ products and ‘ . $PromotionName . ‘ deals! ‘ $ProductName . ‘ from ‘ . $SiteName . ‘.’;
}
?>

This checks for two specific categories, which have specific meta description structures – otherwise it reverts to the default one which we defined earlier.

Now What?

Now you get your finest intern, or writer, or whoever to go through your admin area painstakingly inserting the optimal meta content to replace the dynamic stuff that’s already there. This is great because they can start with your most important (or best-selling) products, and then slowly work their way through.

Another added benefit is that as new products or pages are added to the site they will automatically have a full set of meta content generated for them without having to call in any outside help.

What Do You Think?

Have you done something similar or perhaps something more effective? Do you have a better way of constructing these dynamic statements? Tell me what you think and drop me a line in the comments!

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