Traditionally on Victoria.ac.nz, a 160-character introductory paragraph of text is pulled through on to the page from the metadata description field. The functionality to override this already exists, but it is not widely promoted. This means we can have both on-page descriptions and descriptions written for search. Where necessary, this is what we will do for topic pages.

Strategy

Intro text will appear at the top of the About, Subjects, Careers and People & Stories tabs on each topic page.

We will also write a metadata description for the About page. 

Page intro text

This text will appear on the page in a different style to normal text. It will be limited to 160 characters and be read by humans.

Priorities - About

Most important: Marketing - engaging text that encourages people to read on. Written for humans. 

Secondary importance: Tell users what they will find on the page. (This is more important when the page contains information about particular tasks or services that can be carried out on the page.)

Less important: Search keywords.

Priorities - Subjects, Careers, People & Stories

Most important: Telling users what they will find on the page in an engaging way.

Secondary importance: Search keywords.

Metadata descriptions

This text will be read by search appliances. It will also appear in search results where it may be read by humans.

Priorities

Most important: Search keywords. These should still be in a sentence but it doesn't need to be beautifully written.

Secondary importance: Tell users what they will find on the page. 

Less important: Marketing. 

Search keywords for topics

• study
• TK
• TK
• TK