Browser title

Browser title

Meta title shown on the browser

screenshot browsertitle

Meta title shown in google search

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Browser title / Meta tag <title>

The meta tag <title> is the most visible element within the search results page items. The purpose of the title is to communicate the subject and the source of the content in a very concise way. The title should include the main keyword and the brand name.

What to consider

  • Place the main keyword at the beginning of a title. This way users and search engines can directly identify the subject and judge if the site contains relevant information for the query.
  • The title should not have more than 50 to 60 characters so that it is not cut-off on the search engine results page.
  • Sometimes less is more. A short title with less than 50 characters makes sense if it is a concise description of the content.
  • The title has to be unique. If the search engine cannot recognize, which web page is the most important one it will reduce the relevance of all web pages with the same title.

Browser title is composed out of the following data

If browser title is not defined, it will be automatically generated as follows.
Example:
Individuals and families | ۶Ƶ United States of America

  • Part one: "Individuals and families" is generated from the page title
  • Part two: " | ۶Ƶ " is based on a keyvalue
  • Part three: "United States of America" is generated from the "Country Homepage title"

Reference for publisher

Browser title generated by AEM

screenshot - AEM browsertitle change

Crosslinks

Meta description

Meta description

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Meta tag <description>

Like the meta title, the meta description is displayed within each search result item. It describes the content of a web page and encourages the user to visit. Descriptions have to be written for the user in the first place – even if search engines use them for assessing a web page.

What to consider

  • A good description is about 100 to 150 characters long.
  • The description should include the main keyword and if possible some supporting keywords as well.
  • If there is a poor or no description the search engine will abstract a part of the body copy which seems to be representative for the web page.

Reference for publisher

Meta description change in page properties

screenshot - AEM Meta description change

Page Headline

Page headline

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Page headline <h1>

Headlines provide search engines with clear hints on the subject and thus the main keyword of the page.

What to consider

  • The <h1> headline is used by search engines to assess the relevance of a web page for a search query and to assess what the main subject (keyword) of a page is.
    • Ideally, <h1> headlines consist of the main keyword (or phrase) only in order to underline the central role of the word for the content’s subject.
      • If you use more than one keyword or keyword phrase, the relevance of each word or phrase will be diminished. More words always mean more dilution and more ambiguity about the text and its relevance for a given keyword.

      Section header

      Section header

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      Section header <h2>

      Typically, section header - <h2> headlines - are used to describe the main paragraphs.

      What to consider

      • They are scanned by the search engine as well in order to identify keywords that describe the content and assess its relevance.
      • Don’t overuse the keyword in <h2> headlines as this can be negatively judged by search engines (“keyword stuffing”). Rather use the supporting keywords here. Search engines are able to recognize the semantic connection between words with the same meaning.

      Crosslinks

      Pages with Q&A

      Pages with questions & answers

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      Q&A elements

      For ubs.com pages the option exists to mark a specific (single) page as FAQ page (via page properties r-ubs.com - Microdata tab) and by that to generate recommended markup for crawlers about ubs.com specific frequently asked questions (question / answer pair). By that specific search terms might be rendered prominent inside the (Google) organic search.

      What to consider

      • Valid FAQ microdata markup is only generated if an accordion is defined on the page.
        • The accordion needs to contain questions (via Accordion split text) and answers inside the respective accordion split sections via Text with Image, Teaser or Link List component (with Links or List items).

        Reference for publisher

        Activate FAQ in page properties

        screenshot AEM view

        Videos

        Title, description and transcript are very important

        Title

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        Captions and transcript

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        What to consider

        Videos with title, captions and transcript are much better recognized and indexed by search engines. The optimization has a big impact on page ranking and accuracy of hits in search engine results – internally and externally.

        URL

        A good URL structure can help your site rank higher in search results

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        What to consider

        • Smart and concise URLs support users and search engines to understand the relevance of a page.
        • Each URL should be unique and clear on keywords and accurately reflect the content of the page.
        • Keep your URLs short and easy to read.
        • Use hyphens to separate words in your URLs.

        Images

        Alternative text for images

        Alt tag: Claudia Böckstiegel

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        Search result

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        What to consider

        • Search engines read text alternatives to understand what images are all about.
        • The alt attribute provides alternative information for an image if a user for some reason cannot view it (because of slow connection, an error in the src attribute, or if the user uses a screen reader).
        • On the one hand, an image-text alternative improves accessibility and helps to achieve advantages for the search. On the other hand, a good description of an image on the website helps the search engine to better understand the image and thus return a better, relevant image search result.

        To be on first position on internal search

        Internal search - To be on first position

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        Hero Result

        The Hero Result allows the display of a special highlighted result at the top of the results list for a given search term or terms.

        How it works

        • Hero Result is a search result configured by a publisher using a "Search Hero Indexing Template", displayed in a featured position - above regular search results.
        • Available elements
          • Image
          • Title
          • Text
          • Link label
          • Keywords