SEO

 SEO Rules

The head section of an HTML document includes, among others, the title tag, meta description and meta keywords. Proper usage of keywords here is extremely important for a websites rankings in search engines. This section will provide some general basic guidelines/good practices to follow when constructing the head section of your eCommerce website.

Page Title Tag:
The title tag is the title of a website that is displayed at the top of the browser, and is also the hyperlink that shows up in the search engines results page (SERP) above the website’s description and adress. Title tags are extremely important, not only for search engine ranking, but it also informs human users about the content they can expect to see the on a website once clicked. Here are some general rules of thumb for constructing them:

• The title of each page should be unique. This is because the content of each page is different, so it would be useful and more informative for both users and search engines if the title to a page is specifically tailored to its content.
• The title of each page should accurately describe that page’s content. Part of the reason why they should also be unique.
• The title should contain roughly nine words or 60-70 characters. If optimizing for Google, they are always on the low end of the spectrum so 60 characters for the title should be the maximum.
• The first letter of each word in the title should be capitalized. Just like in the title of a book or magazine.
• The title of the homepage should include your primary keywords. Furthermore they should be descriptive of the entire website rather than just the contents of the homepage itself.
• The titles of each subpage, category page or subcategory should only describe that particular page.
• Do not use stopwords in the title. Stopwords are words like “and,” “or,” “for,” “at” and “by” that Google ignores for queries. So the query “the cat in the hat” is no different to Google search algorithms than the query “cat hat.” See List of Google Stopwords for a complete list of stopwords used (or rather not used) by Google. Instead, replace stop words with symbols or separators, for example, use “&” for “and.”
• The ordering of keywords in the title should be from most to least important. The most important keywords are those that are most searched or most relevant to the site.
• The keywords in the titles should be separated by commas. More specifically, they should be separated by “, ” with a space after the comma.
• The title should include the company’s name. This is of course assuming that the company name is “brandable” or if branding the name is the intent.
• Consider adding a short call to action at the end of the title, when suitable. “Free shipping!” “Sign up for free!”

Meta Description Tag:
A meta description is the short website summary that shows up below the hyperlinked titles in the SERP These summaries simply describes the website as whole, a particular page or section. Like the title tag, meta descriptions do not show up in the content of the site itself. The purpose of the meta description is to inform users who the company is, what the company does followed by a call to action like “free shipping” or “sign up for free” if one is not already being used in that page’s title. A good guideline to follow when creating meta descriptions are:

• Meta descriptions should be 25 words or 150-200 characters in length. Like with titles, Google displays the lower end of the spectrum, so when optimizing for them stick to roughly 150 characters.
• Stopwords are allowed in descriptions.
• Descriptions are written in sentence format. Capitalize the first letter of the sentence and all proper nouns.
• Start the description with the company name followed by a verb (offers, provides, sells) and then list the most important and relevant keywords in order of importance, with a limit of four to five keyword phrases.
• Keywords should be separated by commas. The same rule applies as with titles.
• Try to mix up keywords. Use different words that make up many combinations of different phrases.
• End with a call to action. Call to action gives the user a reason for clicking.

Meta Keyword Tag:

Meta keywords are a list of keywords that pertain to a certain page. The extent to which meta keywords influence rankings in Google is a controversial issue. However, its inclusion with proper construction can still be beneficial. Here are some general guidelines:

• List keyword phrases in order of relevance and importance.
• Separate each keyword phrase with a comma and space (just like keyword lists in the title and description).
• Do not include stop words.
• Stick to a limit of 45 words in total.
• Start the first phrase with a capital letter and make all others lowercased, even proper nouns, and end with a period.
• OK to end the list with the company or domain name.
• Consider adding keyword mispellings or different common word spellings. For instance, “optimization, optimisation.”

 Reference:
http://www.ecommerceoptimization.com/articles/basic-page-title-meta-description-meta-keywords-structuring-rules/