Website Meta Data for Authors

Here’s an example of what user might see on a search engine results page for Adventure Danger from Dirk Volcano.

Online search results tend to display the following Meta Data.

• A Meta Title, also known as a title tag, indicates the topic of the web page. 
• The Meta Description which is a short pitch to convince the user that the page is exactly what they’re looking for

I say might because the search engines (including AI) ultimately choose what to show a user but results are heavily influenced by the Meta Data.

Where does this Meta Data come from?

Meta Data is not displayed on websites by default but instead exists within the website’s source code. Meta Data typically defines the document title, character set, styles, scripts, and other meta information including the Meta Title and Meta Description.

You can manually add a Meta Title and Meta Description to the source code of a webpage but most authors choose to use a plugin (WordPress) or App (Shopify) to edit Meta Data. 

Watch the Build an Author Website online course for more information on applying meta data to an author website on WordPress.

Write Your Meta Titles in 60 Characters or less

Search engines typically show up to the first 60 characters of the Meta Title.

Most author websites do not take advantage of the full 60 characters of a meta title. Take this search engine result for the Joe Abercrombie that returns Meta Title and Meta Description for the author’s home page.

The Meta Title here is a using the site name, Joe Abercombie and the page title (home).

We can squeeze more out of the Meta Title for the homepage to make the most of that bold, attention grabbing, Meta Title. How about this instead?

Joe Abercrombie | Author of Grimdark Fantasy

In one line we have the author’s name and what he does. And we can play around with this to fit the author’s brand and still make it clear to online searches who this is and what he does.

Joe Abercrombie | Godfather of Grimdark Fantasy

We can even squeeze in a easter egg to a frequent quote from one of Abercrombie’s best known character’s and stay under the 60 character limit.

Joe Abercrombie | Grimdark Fantasy Author | Still Alive

Meta Description are 160 characters or less

Search engines typically show up to the first 160 characters of the Meta Description. Let’s look at the search results for Joe Abercrombie again.

That’s not bad. The description tells us he’s a best-selling fantasy author of the best selling First Law Trilogy. 

But…

That’s out of date and this Meta Description lacks conviction, like it’s been patched together as an after thought or more likely taken piecemeal from the first paragraph of the original homepage. Again we can do much better than that.

Here’s an alternative version along with the improved Meta Title.

This version highlights Joe is a best selling author in the Grimdark Fantasy genre, gives the names of his best known work and highlights his latest book.

That’s not bad for a total of 220 characters!

Little Wins make sales

Is it worth paying this much attention to detail to Meta Data?

Yes.

Successful Copy writing and SEO are made up of little wins. 

Is Joe Abercrombie’s current Meta Data stopping him from being a massive international super star author?

Nope. He’s a superb author getting well earned recognition.

But it might be costing him a few sales.

Say you’re a fantasy genre fan looking for something gritty as your next read. At some point you’re going to search for ‘Joe Abercrombie’ to find out if this guy is worth your time and money. Which search result is going to make it more likely you’ll click through to the website to find out more?

The first set of results are… ok. The second set with the added tropey genre language is much more likely to attract clicks through to the website and start the visitor down the path to become a subscriber, paying reader and fan.

Taking a little extra time to squeeze a bit more from the Meta Data of the page on our author website will help to grow mailing lists and sell more books.