{
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    "title" : "Steps Towards SEO: Meta Descriptions on MedlinePlus |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Steps Towards SEO: Meta Descriptions on MedlinePlus",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2017/04/14/steps-towards-seo-meta-descriptions-on-medlineplus/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Steps Towards SEO: Meta Descriptions on MedlinePlus","summary" : "MedlinePlus is a consumer health website produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), available in both English and Spanish. As part of our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, we recently added meta descriptions to our health topic pages.","date" : "2017-04-14T11:00:08-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"kate-masterton" : "Kate Masterton","katie-chan" : "Katie Chan"},"topics" : {
        
            "content-strategy" : "Content strategy",
            "multilingual" : "Multilingual",
            "search-engine-optimization" : "Search engine optimization",
            "social-media" : "Social media",
            "software-engineering" : "Software engineering"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2017-04-14-steps-towards-seo-meta-descriptions-on-medlineplus.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2017/04/2017-04-14-steps-towards-seo-meta-descriptions-on-medlineplus.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2017/04/2017-04-14-steps-towards-seo-meta-descriptions-on-medlineplus.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2017/04/2017-04-14-steps-towards-seo-meta-descriptions-on-medlineplus.md","slug" : "steps-towards-seo-meta-descriptions-on-medlineplus","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2017/04/14/steps-towards-seo-meta-descriptions-on-medlineplus/","content" :"\u003cp\u003eMedlinePlus is a consumer health website produced by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nlm.nih.gov/\"\u003eU.S. National Library of Medicine\u003c/a\u003e (NLM), available in both \u003ca href=\"https://medlineplus.gov/\"\u003eEnglish\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https://medlineplus.gov/spanish/\"\u003eSpanish\u003c/a\u003e. As part of our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, we recently added meta descriptions to our health topic pages. A meta description is a short HTML attribute in the head tag that describes the contents of a web page. When the meta description is not available or is poorly written, search engines automatically generate their own version to describe what is on a web page. They may use snippets from the page, text from anchor links, or other sources on the page.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2017/04/600-x-340-MedLinePlus-Spanish-site.png\"\n    alt=\"Homepage of NLM’s Spanish-language MedlinePlus website.\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese sources lead to varying degrees of quality for automatically generated web page descriptions. By leveraging the meta description, content owners provide search engines with their preferred descriptions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile custom meta descriptions don’t factor in boosting a page’s rank in search results, they help users know what to expect from a webpage. People are more likely to click through to the site when the meta description is well-written, increasing clicks and conversions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"image image-right image-right-legacy\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2017/04/600-x-400-Open_Graph_protocol_logo_public-domain.jpg\"\n    alt=\"The Open Graph protocol logo.\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSocial networking sites like Google+ also use meta descriptions when users share your page. The display is more elegant than what is generated automatically by the site. Similarly, Facebook uses \u003ca href=\"https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters#markup\"\u003eOpen Graph markup\u003c/a\u003e to pull information such as the page description when a user shares a page.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGiven that approximately 80% of traffic to MedlinePlus comes from external search engines and Facebook is our top social referrer, we decided that optimizing our pages with the meta descriptions would improve the external search and social sharing experience for our users.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"diving-into-the-project\"\u003eDiving into the Project\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNine NLM staff wrote descriptions for 978 English health topics over eleven weeks. Staff members spent 30-60 minutes per week writing the meta descriptions, which were added to the site in four batches throughout the project time span.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"guidelines-for-writing\"\u003eGuidelines for Writing\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStaff followed these guidelines when writing the meta descriptions:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse no more than 150 characters in the meta description. While there is no concrete rule about character limits for meta descriptions (most resources say 150-160 characters), the MedlinePlus team decided to go with 150 so that there would be a low likelihood of the descriptions being cut off in search results.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse relevant keywords, when possible from \u003ca href=\"https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner\"\u003eGoogle Key Word Planner\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/trends/\"\u003eGoogle Trends\u003c/a\u003e. Keywords tell us what people are searching for. Incorporating those words into the meta description when appropriate helps users know that the page will be highly relevant to their information need.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse action words such as learn, read, find, etc. Action words give the user a reason to click through to the page.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDon’t use special symbols such as ampersands (\u0026amp;) to ensure a consistent and clean display in external search engines.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse \u003ca href=\"http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guidelines/FederalPLGuidelines/index.cfm\"\u003eplain language\u003c/a\u003e!\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCreate unique meta descriptions for each page.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere is an example of the meta description for the MedlinePlus health topic on \u003ca href=\"https://medlineplus.gov/arthritis.html\"\u003eArthritis\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe custom description is put in the \u003ccode\u003e\u0026lt;meta /\u0026gt;\u003c/code\u003e tag “description”:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cpre tabindex=\"0\"\u003e\u003ccode\u003e\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;\u0026lt;meta name=\u0026#34;description\u0026#34; content=\u0026#34;Arthritis can cause\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;pain, swelling and stiffness in and around the joints.\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;Learn about the different types of Arthritis and how\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;they can affect you.\u0026#34; /\u0026gt;\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the MedlinePlus content management system, we use the same text to generate an Open Graph description tag for Facebook:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cpre tabindex=\"0\"\u003e\u003ccode\u003e\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;\u0026lt;meta property=\u0026#34;og:description\u0026#34; content=\u0026#34;Arthritis can\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;cause pain, swelling and stiffness in and around the\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;joints. Learn about the different types of Arthritis\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u0026lt;pre\u0026gt;and how they can affect you.\u0026#34; /\u0026gt;\u0026lt;/pre\u0026gt;\n\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e\u003ch2 id=\"results\"\u003eResults\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMedlinePlus continues to evaluate the impact of the custom meta descriptions to our pages for Google click-through rates.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBing and DuckDuckGo use meta descriptions consistently, so custom meta descriptions enhance the MedlinePlus external search engine presence. Meta descriptions and Open Graph description tags provide the opportunity for us to highlight contents of a page and let users of social media know precisely what information is available. We will also be leveraging the meta descriptions in our internal search engines to improve user experience.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"whats-next\"\u003eWhat’s next?\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMedlinePlus staff will write meta descriptions in Spanish for health topics for \u003ca href=\"https://medlineplus.gov/spanish/\"\u003eMedlinePlus en español\u003c/a\u003e. We continue to explore what other types of structured data could be used and optimized on the site. The team will look at creating better title tags and explore the use of schema microdata or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). Finally, we will continue pursuing broad ranging SEO efforts to make sure our content is highly discoverable via external search engines.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDisclaimer\u003c/strong\u003e: All references to specific brands and/or companies are used only for illustrative purposes and do not imply endorsement by the U.S. federal government or any federal government agency.\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
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