Keywords and tags
HTML provides for sections (tags) in a web page which are not displayed in a browser but can be evaluated by a search engine. Some are ignored by search engines because they were often misused in the past.
It is generally true that search terms should be spread over the entire page.
The TITLE tag
The TITLE tag is a very important element for SEO. It is automatically filled with the product name followed by the shop name. The detail page of the family tent from our example content has the following TITLE tag
<title>Eureka El Capitan IV - Milestones</title>
It starts with the possible search term. The company name comes afterwards. This also fulfils the requirement that every subpage has a unique TITLE tag so that the shop can be found using many different search terms.
META tags
The application supports two META tags (these start with <meta> in HTML). These have varying relevance for search engines. The short description of the product is automatically written in the description attribute:
<meta name="description" content="Dome tent for four persons" />
Search engines evaluate the DESCRIPTION tag. It is best to distribute the relevant search term several times in the text. When the search results are displayed, the description is printed highlighted and bold if it contains the search term.
At time of writing, almost all search engines (including Google) ignore the keywords META tag:
<meta name="keywords" content="Camping" />
Since this may not always be the case, it is possible to fill out the field Key words for search field below the product descriptions. Even if Google does not use this field at the moment, it is still important for the internal product search. For example, if your product is a vacuum cleaner, you can enter Hoover as a keyword. The product will now be found by the ePages product search, although the word Hoover does not appear in the product name or in the description.
The TITLE and the META tags are found at the top of the HTML document inside the head tag.
H tags
H tags are used for headings in HTML and are important for search engines. The application uses the levels H1 to H3. Examples:
<h1>Eureka El Capitan IV</h1>
<h3>Link to categories » Link to tents » Link to family tents » Eureka El Capitan IV </h3>
The product name is automatically filled in in the H1 level. H2 contains that table with additional product attributes—primary search terms can be entered here for search engines as well. H3 contains the navigation history, meaning the path of the product within the hierarchy.
Although the entries are displayed at the top of the page in the browser, they are in the middle of the body area of the HTML text.
ALT attribute of the IMG tag
ALT attributes are used to provide more detailed descriptions of images. The product name is entered automatically here as well.
ALT="Eureka El Capitan IV"
Search engines consider ALT attributes important if the graphic is found within a link. This is so in ePages 6 as pictures of categories and products are always links. Keywords in the ALT attribute of images are assigned by Google to the target linked page and not to the page on which the images are placed.