Blog — Valentine Makhouleen — interactive art director

March 9th, 2010 at 3:30 pm · Comments (2) · Bookmark & share · Permalink

March 8th, 2010 at 9:21 am · Leave a comment · Bookmark & share · Permalink

Last night I decided to do a survey of search engine positioning of some of the top interactive and ad agencies in Toronto. To my astonishment, I found that about 80% do not have any metatags embedded in their sites. The <meta> description tag provides metadata about the HTML document. These tags are something that is not displayed on the page, but will be parsed and picked up by search engines. Google uses the description tags not only to position the results, but also as a site description posted under the link to the site. If the tags are not present, Google will pull any content off the site at its discretion.

Searching DDB Canada, for example, renders this result:

Granted, their US subsidiary has proper tags, it’s amazing that an agency like DDB, or any other on the list below won’t take an opportunity to advertise on the world’s largest ad agency – Google. Most of the agencies listed offer integrated, interactive services – so something needs to be said about practicing what is preached.

To be completely frank, Ogilvy Toronto (my current agency) lacks description tags as well, although that’s something I flagged and we’re working on.

Description meta tags are critical to indicate relevant content to users and search engines. They are not the most critical factor in search engine optimization, but they are an essential part of your online branding.

My word to the agencies – invest a few hours of your time to optimize your online presence and stake your claim on the results page. I do not see Google going away anytime soon. You have to admit, you all use it, as do your clients and their audience.

It’s a one-liner. Add it to the header of your document:

Without further ado, here’s the offender list I composed, just after 15 minutes of search:

DDB Canada
http://www.ddbcanada.com

Juniper Park
http://www.juniperpark.com

Leo Burnett
http://www.leoburnett.ca

Taxi
http://taxi.ca

Starcom MediaVest Group
http://www.smvgroup.com

Cossette
http://www.cossette.com

Critical Mass
http://www.criticalmass.com

Young and Rubicam
http://www.yr.com

Publicis
http://www.publicis.ca

March 4th, 2010 at 2:30 pm · Comments (4) · Bookmark & share · Permalink