Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Yes - Google says it ignores Keywords but other search engines still look for them.
Figuring out your keywords is the first step in all the other actions you will carry out - and these will affect your rankings in Google as well as every other search engine.

Meta Descriptions are still a very important part of SEO - search engines will show these description to the user, in the search results page, and the contents of the description are also considered by the page ranking algorithm.

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The best steps to take, to ensure your page ranks well in search engines, are outlined in this document: Keywords in T4 (SEO & Courses).

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The easiest thing to do is use popular search engines to look for your content - try to mimic how people are searching for your subject area - then see how high your webpage appears in the results list.

The trouble with SEO is that you make changes to your pages (as per the best practices, above), but then you must wait for the search engines to re-read those pages before your changes will take effect.  This can take weeks, so it's helpful to be able to check that you've done as much as you can, to optimise your page for SEO, without having to wait for the search engines to re-crawl your site.

There are many online tools that will help you see how well you have optimised your pages for SEO. Most are paid services but have limited, free options, to give you a feel for how they work.  E.g.:

• https://www.seoreviewtools.com/seo-checker/ (login required)
• https://suite.seotesteronline.com/seo-checker/ (2 free checks per day)
• https://www.seobility.net/en/seocheck/ (3 free checks per day)

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This is very counter-intuitive.  The SEO field (in T4) that many users fill in only helps to configure the CMS's SEO Report - it does not add SEO keywords to that page.

That's why we've created an SEO bookmarklet, which does 2 things.  When you are browsing your published website, simply click it to open the part of T4 that controls the current page's SEO (in a new browser tab).  Click it a 2nd time to de-clutter the T4 page and automatically correct the common mistake, mentioned above, where people put SEO keywords in the wrong field.

The correct way to add keywords and descriptions, and other SEO best practices are outlined here: Keywords in T4 (SEO & Courses).

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