General website standards

08 Jun 2005

This section provides standards relating to websites that have been developed and adopted internationally.

If you are building your own website there are certain standards to follow to ensure search engines (e.g. Google) find your site. The following information is taken from the Australian Government Culture ans Recreation portal link to Internet Development Guides. A link to this site is listed below.

Metadata
If your organisation provides live theatre and you have a website, the words 'theatre' or 'acting' may never appear on your Web screens.

It may be obvious to the viewer of your screen that you are a live theatre group and a leader in its class - but this may be conveyed through images, video or sound rather than relying on text.

Even your program of performances and the forms users can fill out to buy or book tickets online may not describe what you do in words.

But that's where metadata can be an important tool in ensuring your website's success.

Metadata is data about data
Metadata, which is data about data, allows you to describe your website - largely for the benefit of search engines, as some of them index websites according to your metadata.

If your website is for a theatre company, your metadata might include terms such as 'theatre', 'theater' (for Americans), 'actor', 'stage', 'performance', 'Australian', 'cultural organisation', 'drama' or any other terms that best describe a theatre.

To optimise your position on search engines' results screens you also need to ensure your title tag is descriptive and that you use your keywords in the body of your document as well as in your metadata.

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Joy Suliman
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