Metadata is a relatively simple term that’s a bit tricky to describe. You already know what data is, meaning information. In the computer world, metadata describes that information. Simply put its information about information.

Using an example from the literary world, let’s take a common word like duck and define it; a bird that is common to water. If this were to translate to metadata, duck would be the data and the definition would be metadata in that it describes the data.

Earlier we talked about the invisible text on your website that is seen by the search engines but now by the viewer. Metadata is what the invisible text consists of.

If you remember, search engine spiders are blind to JavaScript. When many business owners designed their websites, they designed it with the viewer in mind, including documents in the form of PDF files, PowerPoint and Excel.

These were formatted in non-HTML code because while it’s great that they designed a user focuses site, they did not design it for the search engine spiders to find.

Search engine spiders may not be readily able to see non-HTML code but they can read metadata descriptions. So if you include non-HTML coded content on your site then you have to go a step further and include descriptions of it so that the search engine spiders can read it and determine its relevance to the search.

In order to help the spiders, as well as yourself, you need to add what’s known as meta tags to your non-HTML coded content, which will explain to them what that content consists of.

A good example to use would be the keywords contained on your site. Let’s say that your keywords are Houses for Sale, Homes for Sale and Home Sales.

To let the search engines know what your keywords are without putting on your site, “ATTENTION SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERS: MY KEYWORDS ARE HOUSES FOR SALE, HOMES FOR SALE AND HOME SALES”. Instead, embedded in your source code where the human eyes can’t see it but the spiders can, will be written:”

Encoding it this way offers a description for the search engine spiders to read and make a note of the keywords that your page is about. Keep in mind that you still have to use these keywords heavily in your site so that the spiders will make note of their relevance to your site.