Why Meta Description Tags in a Blog Can Hurt your Socialness

We just answered how to add a meta description tag to your Blogger blog template because someone asked this SEO question over at Collective-E.

However. Inserting a meta tag into your blog may not be the best idea.

Long ago, Meta Description tags stopped having any impact on how your site is ranked in Google search results (for a definition of the meta description tag with pictures, click here). This may not be the case for other search engines like Yahoo, but it is for Google (as of this post publication). However. Google may display the meta description tag in search results, and social outlets like Facebook will display them as well (as of this post publication...websites are always changing how they work). Here are Google's words stating that meta description tags won't affect your rankings. They do, however, still display them when it's a good fit.

So. Just when you thought "Great! One less thing to worry about!", you could argue: "Hey wait: Google can pick up and display a meta description tag, and so can Facebook, so I'll use it by creating some great marketing copy that reflects my overall website or blog."

This is the angle I usually take. However, this is not the case when it comes to blog posts. Recently, I "shared a link" on Facebook, which means that I posted a link to my Facebook profile, which then signaled to all of my friends there that I had posted a link. Not only does Facebook let me post a link, but it will display a photo if I so choose. The link that I wanted to share was just a silly one: I had just gotten my hair colored brown and blond, and had put it into a ponytail, and it had split itself into the two colors, and it looked interesting. I didn't color one side brown and the other side blond, as it's all blended when styled normally, but the ponytail was visually interesting, so I shared it with my friends.

Now. To be a good little SEO person, I had just recently installed the code to show a meta description tag on my blog template. Years have gone by, and I have never done this. So I did it a few weeks ago. I was in a rush, so the only thing I put in was "girly stuff", which of course has almost no use SEO-wise at all, but was a descriptive start at what you could find at my blog, FashionMista.

I have shared many links via Facebook, and always knew that Facebook automatically pulled the blog post title, the first line of my content on my blog, and a picture. The pulled content did the job, and I never had to make a "Comment" about my own post to explain what was going on.

Until now. Because I had altered my meta description tag, which said only: "girly stuff", when I went to post the link, Facebook showed everyone this:


The blue content, "FashionMista: Look at the Two Tone" is the blog post title. Since "girly stuff" is meta description tag, and hence the content that Facebook automatically displayed, it doesn't explain much about the hair. If this had been a normal article (aka not about a picture), the user would not be very inclined to click on my link, or at least let me explain the style. In fact, nobody did click on the link, which would have explained the style. They only commented based on their reactions to the picture. My mother in particular, was not pleased. She thought I colored one side brown, and the other blond, and looked like that every day. She almost went into shock and I did consider "unfriending" her to temper any social networking damage control.

Right away, I removed the meta description code from my blog template. I waited a day for this to absorb on the internets, and posted a new blog post with a new photo. This is how the new link has shown (with my boring hair style):



You see the blog post title: "FashionMista: Hair in 'Normal' Times of Styling". You see the photo, and you see the first few lines of content.

It is for this reason that I am advising not to fill in the meta description code on your blog. The overall meta description tag, for SEO uses on blogs, are not helpful and should not be used. They are too limiting. Blog posts are so specific to one topic or sliver of a topic, that you do not want that insight to be lost under a blanket statement of what your blog is.

For example: which statement is more effective for this blog post?
Content from the blog: "Who knew a ponytail gone wild could have launched a motherly protest in Facebook. There were honest to goodness revolts going on. Mom threatened to pull out of her highly anticipated trip to NYC, and dad ..."

Meta description tag for entire blog: "FashionMista is a chronicle of a designer who quit her day job to really design, and do a whole lot of other things."

Which do you resonate to? Especially if you were following my stream of link postings on Facebook? The statement that is more direct? Or the statement that is an umbrella term?

If you've noticed a trend in what makes people click on your shared links, do tell.

How to Add the Meta Description Tag in Blogger Blog Templates

If you want to include the Meta description and keyword tags to your blogger based blog template, here is how you can do it.

Note: meta tags aren't that important anymore SEO-wise. However, they may show up when data is pulled from a social media outlet like Facebook, so if you do have something there, make sure it makes sense. BUT: It is not recommended. I did a writeup of why.

If you are still set on adding the meta description tag to your blog, here are the directions. The meta keyword tag will be pretty worthless because it is designed to include a string of words that are found on a specific page. Well, your blog has many pages on it, and if you are making this change at the root level, you only get to put in 1 meta description and 1 set of meta keywords in, which most likely will not include what one of your blog pages is talking about.

Log into your blog.

Click on Layout.

Click on Template and Edit HTML.

Make a copy of your code first. Do this by just Selecting All if it (Edit > Select All) and pasting it into a neutral program like Notepad or Text Edit. Try not to use Word, because that will add yuchy stuff to it without you realizing it.

Once you are looking at the code in your Template, find this line at the top of the code:
b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/

This line is already there. Leave it, don't edit it at all, and place the meta content code beneath it.

The code you will place will be:

meta content='TYPE YOUR DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/
meta content='TYPE YOUR KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/

I didn't wrap these lines of code with the <> symbols because if I did, the code would actually kick in, and you wouldn't be able to see it here. So remember to close your code with the <>.

For your keywords, you can just put a string of words and you don't need commas. There is no need to repeat words in there. That won't help ya.

Once you have entered in the code, click to Preview your blog. This is very important. If your blog doesn't show up or looks funnhy, then you added the code incorrectly, and you need to go get the code you copied and pasted from before into Notepad or Text Edit, and start again. Or, just click Cancel and start again.

Good luck!

What is a Hashtag (#) or Pound Sign on Twitter?

A "hashtag" , or a pound sign, is a Twitter term for the symbol that looks like this: #

When used in Twitter, the hashtag signals that the person Twittering is referring to a subject, or common theme or topic that other people are talking about in Twitter.

Here's a good article that defines the hashtag and gives a bit of history. Side note: funny that 'history' now defines something that is not even a year old, as of this post.

TECHNICAL USES OF THE HASHTAG #
A technical side effect of using this term, is that depending on how you are accessing Twitter, either from TweetDeck, Tweetie, or the regular old fashioned way at www.Twitter.com, Twitter will activate the phrase that directly follows the #. Here is an example of the # (hashtag) in use:

@ktjames I love to follow @collectivee, @sabinaredbranch, @bethschoenfeldt, @popjudaica @TheEllenShow, #followfriday

This is an example from a tweet from me, @ktjames, to my followers. I am telling them that I like to follow these Twitterers (remember, the Twitter name is offset by the @ symbol, and Twitter automatically makes it a link for you). I end it with #followfriday. This hashtag phrase is a commonly used phrase that people us on Fridays to tell their followers who else they like to follow. It helps spread the Twitter love by helping your Twitter friends gain followers.

BRANDING AND YOUR HASHTAGS #
Anyone can make up their own reason for a #, but it's up to the Twitter community to pick it up and use the hashtag. If you are going to make up your own hashtag, keep in mind that what makes sense to you, might not make sense to your followers, or potential new followers. #followfriday is a nice example because it states what it is: It is an activity that happens on a Friday when people shout out who they like to follow.

If I were to make up a hashtag for an event series at Collective-E for our Industry Insights, I could name it: "#CEII", which could stand for "Collective-E Industry Insights". But that probably would not make much sense to you. A more effective hash tag could be: "#industryinsights". Yes it takes more space, but it gets to the point.

If I were to make up a hashtag for the brand of this blog, I could call it "#kjpblog", which would stand for Katie James Pixelated Blog. You tell me if that would catch on or not. ;) I use KJP to refer to my brand, but I would need to become pretty solid in my brand for others to recognize the acronym. I would also need to tweet a lot about my blog. Maybe I'll try it and report back. ;)

Have you created any hashtags? And have they taken off?

How to Create an Auto DM (direct message) for Twitter Followers

Note: This post was originally published on the Collective-E blog.

Here is how to create an auto DM (automated direct message) from your Twitter account to a new follower. For those who don't know, an Auto DM (or Automated Direct Message) is an instant message you get, that usually arrives in your email inbox, from the person who you just clicked to follow you in Twitter. You can access DMs in your side column of Twitter, or through a helpful application like TweetDeck. See below for the link of where you can access your personal DMs in Twitter. In theory, no one else can see them but you.

Once you have set this up, please share with us what you have chosen for your DM. What creative message did you think of? Auto DMs have been debated lately as a bad strategy, as they suggest laziness an wreek of infomertial-type people. So just be careful when you are creating them.

Go to TweetLater.com and register for an account.

Once you submit your registration, you may be taken to their newsletter page. Sign up or ignore this.

You'll need to log in again. Find the login button (as of this post, it's in the top right corner), and log on (even tho it seems like you would now be logged in, since you just created an account).

Now you must tell TweetLater about your Twitter account.

Click the blue +Twitter button in the top navigation.

Enter your Twitter username and password. I can't vouch for the level of security involved here. Making this decision is up to you.

Scroll down a bit and click the "Auto Welcome" button.

Also on this page, you can select if you'd like to auto follow those who follow you, or auto unfollow those who unfollow you. However, Twitter just decided to do away with the auto-follow feature because it seems disingenuous (which is my philosophy as well...and thanks @pegsamuel of @socialdiva for this Twitter Tip-off). TweetLater can provide this because they have worked with Twitter's API, which just means that Twitter allows them to use some of their technology to make fancy tools like this one.

The next question they ask you before you click "Save" is whether or not you want your @replies sent to you via email. @replies are the times that someone in Twitter is either talking to you or about you. This could be handy if you can't check your replies as often as you'd like. You can always see your replies in TweetDeck (for your computer), on Twitter itself (online), in Tweetie or Twitterific (on your phone) or other ways. You can also do a Twitter search for your name at search.twitter.com, or now from the new search box on the right side of your home page at Twitter.

NOTE: When I tested this, by way of following myself from another Twitter account, the DM did not come right away, or even for a few days. The Support people at TweetLater, who were very nice, told me that there was a delay/problem with the Twitter API that day, so things were a bit out of whack. It did send a day or two later.

If you've had success with the auto DM, do let us know in the Comments below. If you've noticed that you've actually lost followers (people who unfollow you in protest of your robotic DM), also let us know.

PS: You can also use TweetLater.com to auto opt out of DMs that are sent to you (um...would that be bad karma if you have created one and set up your account to send them...? Think about it.).