This chapter covers helping people find your pages, both on search engines like Google and with your website's own search box.
The SEO panel
The SEO button in the main toolbar, the large G, checks the page you're on. The bar under it shows the page's score, and hovering over it shows the score as a number.
Click it to open the SEO panel.
The panel gives the page a score out of 100 and lists anything to fix. It checks that:
the page has exactly one Heading 1,
it has no more than 10 Heading 2s,
every picture has a description,
the page description is 50 to 160 characters long,
the page's title is 20 to 60 characters long.
Below the score, Top Keywords Used on This Page lists the words that appear most often. It counts the whole page, including the menu and footer, so expect to see your menu words near the top. Check that the words people would search for are in the list.
The score is a guide, not a guarantee. What matters most is clear, useful writing that answers what your visitors are looking for.
Titles, descriptions and keywords
Search engines read a few of the page settings. Click Pages in the main toolbar to change them, then click Save.
Page Title is shown in search results unless you fill in SEO Title. Make it say what the page is about, for example "Garden design in Leeds" rather than "Services".
Path, the page's address, is shown in search results too. Short, readable words help.
SEO Title replaces the page title in search results and the browser tab. Use it when the menu needs a short title but search results need a longer one. Aim for 20 to 60 characters.
Description is the text search engines usually show under the title. Write one or two sentences, 50 to 160 characters, that make someone want to click.
Keywords are other words people might search for that aren't on the page, separated by commas. Your website's own search uses them. Most search engines ignore them.
Your website's own search
If your website has a search box, it searches the words on each page, plus the page's title, description and keywords.
A page shows up in search as soon as it's published. Unpublished pages never do.
Pages in a members area only show up for members who are allowed to see them.
Search matches whole words, so a search for "course" won't find a page that only says "courses". If visitors might use a different word or spelling, add it to the page's Keywords.
Try searching your site for the words a visitor would use. If the right page doesn't come up, add those words to the page or to its keywords.