How to optimize or write description tag for search engines

What is a Meta Description?

Meta description tags, while not important to search engine rankings, are extremely important in gaining user click-through from SERPs. Meta descriptions are HTML attributes that provide concise explanations of the contents of web pages. Meta descriptions are commonly used on search engine result pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given page.
The meta description should employ the keywords intelligently, but also create a compelling description that a searcher will want to click.

Writing meta description for SEO

Write Compelling Ad Copy
The meta description tag serves the function of advertising copy. It draws readers to a website from the SERP and thus, is an extremely important part of search marketing. Crafting a readable, compelling description using important keywords can improve the click-through rate for a given webpage. To maximize click-through rates on search engine result pages, it's important to note that Google and other search engines bold keywords in the description when they match search queries.

Recommended Length
Meta descriptions can be any length, but search engines generally truncate snippets longer than 160 characters. It is best to keep meta descriptions between 150 and 160 characters.

Avoid Duplicate Meta Description Tags
As with title tags, it is important that meta descriptions on each page be unique. One way to combat duplicate meta descriptions is to create a dynamic and programmatic way to make unique meta descriptions for automated pages.

Not a Google Ranking Factor
Google announced in September of 2009 that neither meta descriptions nor meta keywords factor into Google's ranking algorithms for web search. Google uses meta descriptions to return results when searchers use advanced search operators to match meta tag content, as well as to pull preview snippets on search result pages, but it's important to note that meta descriptions do not to influence Google's ranking algorithms for normal web search.

Quotes Cut Off Descriptions
Any time quotes are used in a meta description, Google cuts off the description. To prevent meta descriptions from being cut off, it's best to remove all non-alphanumeric characters from meta descriptions. If quotation marks are important in your meta description, you can change them to single quotes rather than double quotes to prevent truncation.

Meta Description Should Include a Call to Action
Now comes the fun part…
Remember, your title tags and meta descriptions aren’t just fields that you’re optimizing in the hopes of receiving some nebulous SEO boost. Instead, these fields form your snippet in the natural search results, which means that they must be written to be as compelling as possible!
Imagine encountering the two following snippets in the SERPs:

“How to Build Links in 2013

This article talks about link building techniques that will work well in 2013, including email link prospecting, social media marketing and content marketing.”

Versus

“31 Ways to Easily Attract Backlinks in 2013

Are you using dated link building practices that could be harming your brand? Find out how to effortlessly
build links using these 2013-approved techniques.”

I probably don’t even need to ask which of these articles you’d rather read, right?
In a way, writing good meta descriptions draws on the principles of copywriting as much as it does SEO best practices. This can take practice, but the reward is a higher click-through rate, increased natural search traffic to your website and potentially higher SERPs rankings if—as some SEO experts believe—it’s true that your overall CTR contributes in some small way to your snippet’s placement in the natural search listings.

If you aren’t yet an expert copywriter, consider the following guidelines when it comes to crafting your title tags and meta descriptions:
• Add a call to action. Asking people to do something (as in the case of “Find out how” in the example above) often results in readers taking the action you’ve requested. Other possible calls to action for your meta descriptions include “Discover how,” “Read more about,” “Click here,” or other related variation.
• Use cliffhangers. The first meta description show above gives everything away, that is, there’s no real reason for the reader to click through to read the article, as its content is given away by the snippet. Instead, use cliffhangers in your meta descriptions to encourage viewers to click through for the full story.
• Write your tags for yourself. Once you’ve come up with a possible meta tag, ask yourself, “Would I click through based on this information?” If your tags don’t yet seem compelling, rewrite them until you come up with something more enticing.

Don’t forget, you can always test out and refine the effectiveness of your meta tag content by changing the information stored in these web page fields periodically. If you notice a spike in natural search traffic upon making a change, it’s possible that you’ve hit on a winning combination of meta tag text.

What are dofollow links | How it effects search engine optimization

Whenever you creates a link, by default it becomes dofollow link unless you use rel="nofollow” attribute which makes it nofollow link. As the name suggest dofollow link is followed by google crawler. This means whenever a page with any link is crawled by google bot has dofollow link than the reputation of the page with link is added to the page rank of the linked landing page.

If a site with a high pagerank links to you with dofollow link, Google increases your authority, and in turn, your pagerank. Those links can be links directly to something you wrote or links left in comments (since most commenting forms allow you to include your URL). But if that site with the higher pagerank is using the noFollow tag than it will not count to your website/blog.

How to use dofollow links for SEO

If you are allowing dofollow links on your site than your readers will appreciate it if you don’t use NoFollow tagging. After all, you’ll be building their authority. It’s a way to give back to your community. Like everything, though, there’s a downside to being a dofollow site, spammers may inundate a dofollow blog with comments and links. If you choose to become a DoFollow site, be aware that you may experience an increase in spam comments and it may take more time to filter out the spammy stuff.

Another think to take care of is that you should try to create backlinks to your website/blog on pages that allows dofollow link. This will greatly help you in getting high page rank. But this doesn't mean that you should not create nofollow backlinks, the opnly thing is that nofollow links will not count you as much as dofollow can.

What are nofollow links | How it effects search engine optimization

Whenever you creates a link with rel="nofollow” attribute it becomes nofollow link. As the name suggest this link is not followed by google crawler. This means whenever a page with any link is crawled by google bot has nofollow attribute than the reputation of the linked landing page is not effected by the page rank of the page with that link.

If a site with a high pagerank links to you, Google increases your authority, and in turn, your pagerank. Those links can be links directly to something you wrote or links left in comments (since most commenting forms allow you to include your URL). But if that site with the higher pagerank is using the NoFollow tag than it will not count to your website/blog.

How to use nofollow links for SEO

Every site has links that are less important or link to pages that don’t change (e.g., a site map or your About Me page). Use the NoFollow tag for those links.

If you are creating a link to page which has lower page rank than yours, here nofollow links should be used. In addition to low priority links, Google suggests using the NoFollow tag for untrusted content and paid links.
Same should be done in opposite case, when you are creating backlink on page with lower page rank than yours website/blog, than it should be with nofollow attribute so that it only count to your traffic and doesn't derepute your site.

If you have text link ads on your site, make sure they’re tagged as NoFollow.

SEO Tip: Use blogger post labels as meta keywords

This is the only way to use labels as meta keywords..
Here is the code to do it.. which you should place instead of the Head tag..!

The Code is commented and it also outputs the Title and Meta Description tags(using Post title) for your convenience..

<!--::::::::::: Block1: Output post meta keywords -->

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>

   <b:section id='meta1' showaddelement='no'>

   <!-- widget must be a of Type = 'blog' to have posts data exposed, and must have a unique id -->

   <!-- Empty Includables(functions) to output nothing, You must keep them ): -->

   <b:widget id='Blog2' locked='no' type='Blog'>

      <b:includable id='nextprev'/>

      <b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'/>

      <b:includable id='post' var='post' />

      <b:includable id='status-message'/>

      <b:includable id='comment-form' var='post'/>

      <b:includable id='backlinkDeleteIcon' var='backlink'/>

      <b:includable id='postQuickEdit' var='post'/>

      <b:includable id='commentDeleteIcon' var='comment'/>

      <b:includable id='feedLinks'/>

      <b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'/>

      <b:includable id='comments' var='post'/>

      <b:includable id='main' var='top'><!-- Main Function of Any widget comes with ID 'main' -->

         <!-- Loop Page Posts (only 1 in a post page )-->

         <b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>

            <b:if cond='data:post.labels'>

               <!-- If the post has labels, make Meta keywords by looping lables -->

               &lt;meta name=&quot;keywords&quot; content=&quot;<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'><data:label.name/><b:if cond='data:label.isLast != &quot;true&quot;'>,</b:if></b:loop>&quot; /&gt;

            </b:if>

         </b:loop>

      </b:includable>

   </b:widget>

   </b:section>

</b:if>

<!--::::::::::: Block1 END -->



<head> <!-- THE HEAD -->



<!-- must include(called) here to output other head sub elements -->

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>



<!--::::::::::: Block2: Output Index Title,keywords,decription and Post Title,description -->

<!-- Post/Archive Page -->

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != &quot;index&quot;'>

   <title><data:blog.pageName/></title>

    <meta name='description' expr:content='data:blog.pageName' />

<!-- Index Page -->  

<b:else/>

   <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

   <meta name='keywords' content='your,blog,keywords!!' />

   <meta name='description' content='your blog description!!' />

</b:if>

<!--::::::::::: Block2 END -->

Some Issues you should be aware of ):

1- XHTML validation will give your warnings about these issues :

Meta Keywords tag Appears before the Head tag.
Why we have to put that code before the head tag? you have to ask ):
well.. You can't place a widget outside of a section, you can't place a section inside head tag. and Post lables must be called inside of 'Blog' widget.
Meta Keywords will be surrounded with Div tags which should not appear there.
why? Cause Widget and sections Tags are auto. converted to div tags by Blogger..!

2- Some Meta tags analyzers will warn you that they don't see meta keywords (Cause it was outside of the head).. But Most search engines would be able to find your meta keywords..
As you can see that's why I'm separating the code into 2 blocks:
first one outside the Head tag to output Post Meta keywrds.
Second one inside the Head Tag to output Title and meta description of all pages and meta keywords for index page; without the need of a widget. And in case an engine didn't like those meta keywords, you still have the title and description where they should be.

3- After Adding that code , you will get errors when trying to do anything in the 'Page elements' and clicking save. the Only solution is cut Block1 from the template & save, do what you need in 'page elements' & save. paste Block1 back in the template.
It is the only way, until Blogspot pay attention to the issue!

To edit your Blogspot template

Go to Layout > Edit HTML > Check 'Expand Widget Templates', and don't forget to save a backup before you do anything..
Don't forget to remove those comments.
Replace those Static Blog meta tags content with real ones.

How to remove the Blogger Navbar 2012

To remove the navbar from the blog you can use following simple steps.

Open blogger template designer.

Than go to advanced tab and click 'Add CSS'

Here copy paste code

#navbar {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none;
}

Apply to your blog and now the nav bar will be removed from the top of your blog. Enjoy...

How to remove blank space below header blogger

White blank space below blogger header logo that is to be removed.

To remove this space open template > HTML editor

and search for 'titlewrapper' and change the padding value to 0px.

And its DONE...