There isn’t any single big secret about SEO - it’s largely a combination of clean up-to-date structural coding, good copy, strategised in-depth link building programmes and regularly refreshed content (all things we’re good at here at Greenmedia.) There are so many myths and misconceptions about what makes good SEO, some based on out-dated web practices, lots based on unethical methods and quite a few based on nothing more than bad guesswork and plain ignorance.

In this article we’re covering two topics that regularly crop up in SEO conversations - meta description tags and meta keyword tags. Neither is particularly important these days, but this doesn’t stop them being the invariable reference points for every amateur SEO expert out there. Perhaps it’s just because they sound a little bit technical… who knows?

Meta description tags

This is the copy that can appear on a search engine results page, and is literally just a description of what’s on the page that’s being referenced. The important thing to know regarding meta descriptions is that they don’t have any bearing whatsoever on your search engine ranking. None at all. Despite this, it’s still worth giving them some attention as they may well be the difference between a click-through and being ignored from a search results page. Write at least one definitive meta description for your website, and if your content is diverse enough then write them for individual pages. Just don’t expect that that they’ll boost your search ranking, they won’t.

Meta keyword tags

SEO would be a far easier practice if it was simply a case of filling up your webpages with meta keywords, but the general experience and usefulness of search engines would also go through the floor as everyone would be doing it - which is why it isn’t so simple now. Meta keyword tags are a legacy of what can be called, in web terms at least, the ‘old days’. Things have moved on. They’re essentially irrelevant now, and the major search engines don’t place any ranking priority on them whatsoever. Google and MSN ignore them completely in this regard. Yahoo and Ask do briefly consider what is in the tag, but they don’t prioritise it over the body content of the website and don’t use it at all for ranking.

Always keep in mind that you’re writing for human users and that the goal of the search engine is to maximise the user experience. The whole idea of a meta keyword tag - loading a line of code with words that the user can’t see - goes against this entirely.

Image-heavy HTML emails, although looking great, often cause a number of problems across different email clients. Outlook 2007, Hotmail, legacy releases of Outlook, Gmail, AOL, YahooMail, Apple Mail and… whisper it… Lotus Notes all deal with HTML email differently and, unless you’re coding specifically to handle them all, they’re likely to display your email in a number of weird and not-so-wonderful ways. Considering the size of most commercial mailing lists it is inevitable that the recipients will be using a variety of email clients, so it’s essential that you factor safeguards into your mailout procedures if you’re going to avoid the headaches they can cause.

We’ve found the best way around this issue is to simply settle on a happy medium between text and images, something that looks great, will display correctly and consistently, and of course conveys the necessary message in the most effective way.

With this in mind, our recent email marketing for Jaguar adopted a subtle blend of imagery and text.

The copy - including the tagline - was presented in text format and we used a single image of the new Jaguar XK, along with the requisite branding. The large image was powerful enough to support the design and present a suitably glossy style, while the use of text rather than image-based wording meant that the flyer was displayed consistently across every email client.

Who uses which email client?

A recent report from Fingerprint shows that Outlook (all variations) and Hotmail are used by the majority of business recipients. Interestingly, Apple’s iPhone already has a 1.3% share of the business usership, underlining the fact that new platforms don’t necessarily take long to become significant. The notoriously problematic AOL Mail on the other hand commands just a fraction of a percentage. Either way, your customer list will contain users on these email clients - so you have to accommodate them in your coding.

What else is there to consider?

As well as presentation, the variation in email clients can cause a number of other unwelcome issues for HTML email marketing. Form handling, whitelists, click-thrus, downloads and forwards are all tackled in different client to client - and if you’re not considering this then there’s a major chance that the email marketing that you’ve carefully created is unrecognisably bad for some recipients.

Greenmedia’s experience in email marketing, coupled with the fact that we’ve created our own system in-house, means that we’ve got it covered. Take a look at our portfolio for a selection of email marketing that looks great across all email clients.