KB User's Guide - SitePref Tab - SEO Description for the Internal and External Sites

When it comes to optimizing your site for optimal SERP (search engine results page) performance, the content of your internal and/ or external site's SEO (search engine optimization) description are a crucial component that users evaluate when making the decision to click on a search result. This element is also heavily weighed by search crawlers when determining the relevancy of the site in relation to the user's search query. This document will show Admins how and where to enter the SEO description and offer some best practices tips.

SEO Description for the Internal and External Sites Fields in the KB

To populate fields for the SEO description:

Go to the KB Admin Tools > SitePref tab > Group Spaces link.
Click on the Edit link for your space.
- Note: If the Edit link is greyed out, this indicates that you do not have sufficient permissions to access this page. Please contact the admin for your space to have your permissions changed, or so they can perform this action.
Toward the bottom of the screen, you will see two fields: Internal site SEO description and External site SEO description. Enter your custom SEO description here, then click the Update group space button at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

The maximum characters for each field is 255.

Sample of an SEO Description

The example below shows the SEO description of the Unified KB site, which is being displayed directly below the Google search result link:

The description reads, 'Higher Education Knowledge Base content management, sharing and collaboration platform'.

SEO Description Guidelines

Use Action-oriented Language: provide a solution or benefit if they click on your KB site.
Keep It Under 155 Characters: Avoid awkward mid-sentence breaks in your description. That way you can present a complete statement that inspires the user to click.
Make it specific and relevant: The average searcher knows a generic meta description when they see it in a Search Engine Results Page (SERP), despite possibly not knowing exactly what a meta description is. That's why it's so important to use descriptive words--not unnecessary "fluff" words. Do your best to connect with your target audience.