hello DP i run an oscommerce website selling aftermarket car parts. many of the pages are indexed on google/yahoo/msn, but my mission now is to get better SERPs. the question i have deals with meta descriptions. i thought what appears underneath the page titles in SERPs was what's found on that page itself, but while trying to figure out why my site isn't getting many sales, i noticed that what is actually underneath the page titles in SERPs was the meta description. since i'm selling car parts .. now that i know this, i'm planning on putting the part that i'm selling plus the part number. 1. should i bother stuffing the manufactures product information for those products into the meta description? 2. or should i stick keywords into the meta description? 3. would search engines look at this as something bad? 4. is this the proper way to use meta descriptions? now for meta keywords: i've been using generic phrases for keywords .. for example say i'm selling an AEM cold air intake for a 93-00 Honda Civic. generally, what i would do for the meta keywords is stick in the product's title, and then stick phrases such as AEM cold air intake for Honda civic, Honda Civic Cold air intake. Is that fine, or should i just use 1-2 word phrases that are found on the content of that page like AEM, cold air intake, honda civic, etc. i read that the keywords u use should be found on the page itself?
1. should i bother stuffing the manufactures product information for those products into the meta description? Keep your Meta Description down to 200 characters or lesser. End it with a full stop. 2. or should i stick keywords into the meta description? Yep, you may wish to input keywords that have low KEI. 3. would search engines look at this as something bad? No. A user may report you if they see this as something bad. Go figure. Always remember, search engines themselves can be the police, but it's the people that are the informants 4. is this the proper way to use meta descriptions? Yes, what you have said above is perfect for meta desc. If you also place misspellings of your keywords, the meta desc. is a good area to do so