Ricardo
02-02-2007, 05:07 PM
As you may know the Category Pages and the Link Details page have by default empty description and keyword fields, unless you add them manually. If you let users add keywords on their own they might add hundreds of unrelated keywords and bad descriptions that will cause more harm than good. So, here are some ideas on how to curb this problem.
Please post your ideas and feedback on this, this is very important to all of us who want to conquer the first places on Google.
I think this should be the optimal setting for <title>,<meta name="description" content="" /> and <meta name="keywords" content="" />
Changing the header.tpl on your template you can get something similar to the optimal settings below, but there are some errors.
The idea here is to let esyndicat create basic title, description and keywords AUTOMATICALLY. If you really want to add more detailed keywords and description, then you can do it manually. The extra keywords and description will be merged with the basic ones.
This is the ideal structure, this is not the way esyndicat is set up right now, but I'll show you how you you can get close to it. Hopefully esyndicat coders will be able implement these features in the near future.
Let's take an example of a niche directory concentrating on Real Estate firms throughout the United States:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IDEAL STRUCTURE
HOMEPAGE
<title>Real Estate</title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate" />
CATEGORY 1 (STATE - CALIFORNIA)
<title>Real Estate - California</title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate California" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California" />
SUBCATEGORY (CITY - LOS ANGELES)
<title>Real Estate - California - Los Angeles</title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate California Los Angeles" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California,Los Angeles" />
LINK DETAILS
<title>Real Estate - California - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty</title>
<meta name="description" content="Earthquake Realty - Los Angeles, is an independently owned and operated member of The World Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. In 2003, the office generated sales worth more than U.S. $484 million." />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California,Los Angeles,Earthquake Realty" />
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Now let's look at how this structure can be achieved by changing the template file header.tpl.
Let's change the header to:
<title>Real Estate - {$category.title} - {$link.title} </title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate {$category.title} {$link.title} {$link.description} " />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate, {$category.title} , {$link.title} " />
THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL GET:
HOMEPAGE
<title>Real Estate - ROOT - </title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate ROOT " />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,ROOT," />
CATEGORY 1 (STATE - CALIFORNIA)
<title>Real Estate - California - </title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate California " />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California, " />
SUBCATEGORY (CITY - LOS ANGELES)
<title>Real Estate - Los Angeles - </title> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate - California - Los Angeles")
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate Los Angeles " /> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate California Los Angeles")
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,Los Angeles," /> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate,California,Los Angeles")
LINK DETAILS
<title>Real Estate - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty</title> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate - California - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty")
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate Los Angeles Earthquake Realty Earthquake Realty - Los Angeles, is an independently owned and operated member of The World Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. In 2003, the office generated sales worth more than U.S. $484 million." /> (Ideal thing here should be: REMOVE Real Estate Los Angeles Earthquake Realty and show ONLY the {$link.description})
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,Los Angeles,Earthquake Realty" /> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate,California,Los Angeles,Earthquake Realty")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
One program that uses a structure very similar to this is phpld, except that the <title> in LINK DETAILS shows only the company name Earthquake Realty instead of Real Estate - California - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty
In this case, I have a question: Which one is better for the link details, just the company name or the complete title in keyword rich form? I'm not sure about this one.
I also believe that any unrelated keywords in the title, like "View Link" for example, are unnecessary and cause more troubles than benefits. I believe that a clean title, description and related keywords will improve performance.
This is just the "basic idea", of course the homepage could have more detailed keywords and a better description of the whole directory.
Please post your ideas and feedback on this, this is very important to all of us who want to conquer the first places on Google.
I think this should be the optimal setting for <title>,<meta name="description" content="" /> and <meta name="keywords" content="" />
Changing the header.tpl on your template you can get something similar to the optimal settings below, but there are some errors.
The idea here is to let esyndicat create basic title, description and keywords AUTOMATICALLY. If you really want to add more detailed keywords and description, then you can do it manually. The extra keywords and description will be merged with the basic ones.
This is the ideal structure, this is not the way esyndicat is set up right now, but I'll show you how you you can get close to it. Hopefully esyndicat coders will be able implement these features in the near future.
Let's take an example of a niche directory concentrating on Real Estate firms throughout the United States:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IDEAL STRUCTURE
HOMEPAGE
<title>Real Estate</title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate" />
CATEGORY 1 (STATE - CALIFORNIA)
<title>Real Estate - California</title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate California" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California" />
SUBCATEGORY (CITY - LOS ANGELES)
<title>Real Estate - California - Los Angeles</title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate California Los Angeles" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California,Los Angeles" />
LINK DETAILS
<title>Real Estate - California - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty</title>
<meta name="description" content="Earthquake Realty - Los Angeles, is an independently owned and operated member of The World Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. In 2003, the office generated sales worth more than U.S. $484 million." />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California,Los Angeles,Earthquake Realty" />
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Now let's look at how this structure can be achieved by changing the template file header.tpl.
Let's change the header to:
<title>Real Estate - {$category.title} - {$link.title} </title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate {$category.title} {$link.title} {$link.description} " />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate, {$category.title} , {$link.title} " />
THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL GET:
HOMEPAGE
<title>Real Estate - ROOT - </title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate ROOT " />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,ROOT," />
CATEGORY 1 (STATE - CALIFORNIA)
<title>Real Estate - California - </title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate California " />
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,California, " />
SUBCATEGORY (CITY - LOS ANGELES)
<title>Real Estate - Los Angeles - </title> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate - California - Los Angeles")
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate Los Angeles " /> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate California Los Angeles")
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,Los Angeles," /> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate,California,Los Angeles")
LINK DETAILS
<title>Real Estate - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty</title> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate - California - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty")
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate Los Angeles Earthquake Realty Earthquake Realty - Los Angeles, is an independently owned and operated member of The World Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. In 2003, the office generated sales worth more than U.S. $484 million." /> (Ideal thing here should be: REMOVE Real Estate Los Angeles Earthquake Realty and show ONLY the {$link.description})
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,Los Angeles,Earthquake Realty" /> (Ideal thing here should be: "Real Estate,California,Los Angeles,Earthquake Realty")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
One program that uses a structure very similar to this is phpld, except that the <title> in LINK DETAILS shows only the company name Earthquake Realty instead of Real Estate - California - Los Angeles - Earthquake Realty
In this case, I have a question: Which one is better for the link details, just the company name or the complete title in keyword rich form? I'm not sure about this one.
I also believe that any unrelated keywords in the title, like "View Link" for example, are unnecessary and cause more troubles than benefits. I believe that a clean title, description and related keywords will improve performance.
This is just the "basic idea", of course the homepage could have more detailed keywords and a better description of the whole directory.