Learn how to optimize your catalogs for search engines.
Table of contents
Meta title and meta description
Overview
SEO stands for search engine optimization. Simply, it means optimizing your content and strategies for a better search results ranking. When search engine bots crawl and index your catalog, they cannot understand and index the text on your catalog pages.
This article will help you optimize your digital publications for search engines to increase organic visibility and drive targeted traffic to your business content. It shows you how to leverage Flipsnack's built-in SEO capabilities to enhance your content's discoverability and reach your target audience more effectively.
Key benefits
- Increase the organic visibility of your digital publications in search engine results.
- Drive qualified traffic to your business content through strategic keyword optimization.
- Enhance brand discoverability with properly indexed digital publications.
- Improve content performance with search-engine-friendly metadata.
- Track and measure your SEO efforts through integrated analytics.
Requirements
- Any premium subscription.
There are many ways for people to discover your publications. One of the most common ways is through a simple search engine search result. So with that in mind, this article is designed to help you better your catalog's ranking odds by implementing some simple SEO tips.
SEO stands for search engine optimization. In simple words in means optimizing your content and strategies for a better search result ranking. In this article we'll only talk about how that applies to your page flip catalog.
Step-by-step guide
Here’s exactly what you should do if you want to have your catalog indexed and ranking for a relevant keyword.
1. Set flipbooks to public
We need to start with this point because it really doesn’t matter what SEO techniques you use if you don't make your flipbook public. Setting it to Public allows Google to index it, which means that Google (or whatever search engine you’re using) will identify it and then rank it.
Unlisted or private catalogs published on Flipsnack use a noindex tag, which tells Google bot not to include the catalog in its index. This is great if you want to keep a catalog private, but if you want it to rank in Google, you must ensure that your catalog is published as Public. You can edit the visibility status of a catalog form unlisted to the public, but not the other way around.
2. Select keywords strategically
Effective keyword strategy is crucial for maximizing your digital publications' visibility and driving qualified traffic to your content. While SEO remains highly competitive in the B2B space, implementing a strategic keyword approach can significantly enhance your content's discoverability and market reach.
The Challenge: Generic keywords like "magazine" or "catalog" face intense competition from established industry players, making it difficult to achieve meaningful search rankings and diminishing your content's potential impact.
The Solution: Implement a targeted three-component keyword strategy that combines:
- Your organization's brand identity;
- Publication type classification;
- Distinctive temporal or series identifier.
An example structure for optimal business visibility:
[Brand Name] + [Publication Type] + [Unique Identifier] = Global Solutions Product Catalog Q1
Now that you know the best main keyword for your catalog, it's important to understand how to use it.
Title
Before you publish a flipbook, you'll need to set a name or title. That title will be used as a meta title for your publication so that it will appear in search engine results pages. Here's where it is really important to use the main keyword as the title, or as part of the title. It matters, and it will help your catalog rank for the keyword that you decided to target
The same title is also used in the catalog URL, which is also a ranking factor. Thus, it is all the more important to use your main keyword in the title.
No need to add any extra words other than your main keyword because our system also adds your name as author in the meta title, and the entire meta title should be shorter than 60 characters.
DescriptionThe description you write for your catalog when you publish it is also important. The first part of it will be used in the meta description.
- it needs to be unique;
- it should contain a short overview or summary of what your catalog is;
- use your keyword in the description;
- keep the most important information and keywords at the beginning of the description;
- (optional) end with an invitation for people to read your catalog.
Here are some examples of good descriptions:
- The 2020 XYZ Student Guide is the official resource for student-athletes from USA interested in playing school sports. Start reading
- A guide to booking your newborn sessions and baby photoshoots with PhotoBrands - New Jersey Newborn, Maternity, and Family Photographer
Meta title and meta description
As part of our premium plan, you can also customize your publication's meta title and meta description to gain more control. These are different than the previously mentioned title and description, and when these fields are completed, they will appear in search results. Otherwise, the search engines will index the publication's title and the first part of the description, as mentioned.
To edit the meta title and meta description, follow these steps:
Step 1: After you published your catalog, click Details.
Step 2: Next, click on the SEO button.
Step 3: Write the Meta Title and Meta Description and then click OK.
Backlinks
In this case, a backlink is simply a link from one website to your catalog. If you have a website, it would be great to include a link to your catalog, or to embed it.
Adding links from your site or blog to your catalog has some major benefits:
- It will help Google bots crawl and index your page faster,
- It can significantly help your catalog's ranking odds. Bonus points if you place the link on an anchor text that contains your keyword,
- SEO aside, it will also help drive traffic to your catalog. It’s another way to promote your hard work.
Important: Embedding your catalog on your site does provide similar benefits.
What's next?
- To get more traffic to your catalog, you should also consider exploring other promo ideas besides SEO. One of the best ways to promote your content is to share your catalog to get more exposure. Find out more about all sharing options available with Flipsnack.
- The domain name is also a ranking factor if you're using parts of the keyword in the domain name. With a Flipsnack Business plan or Enterprise, you can use your own domain for all your catalogs. Read more about custom domains.
Important: We generally advise using a custom domain or subdomain from your site for branding purposes and not for SEO. That being said, it's essential to know that if you set a subdomain such as: magazines.condenast.es it will help your chances to rank in Google for "condenast magazines". You can replace condenast with your own website/ brand name and magazines with any word that you target as a keyword (catalogs, issues, reports, communication, documents etc), and you get a custom subdomain that you could use with Flipsnack.
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