Meta Tags

Introduction

Meta tags can quite literally mean the difference between an article being opened or not. Continue reading for the basics of meta tags and tips to optimize your indexing.

The content within your article is already indexed by ServiceNow; however, it does not account for the user's unforeseen search behavior. Meta tags can help with other potential user queries that do not appear in your article body.

For example, your article may be about Coca-Cola and the formulation process. Some users may look for "pop" or "coke" instead of the specific keyword "Coca-Cola".

Put yourself in the user's shoes:

• How they would enter search terms?

• What phrases they would use when facing the issue that is addressed in the article?

Basics

Enter your keywords into the text area and separate them by commas.

Tips

#1 - Tag Important Words

ServiceNow indexes the text in your article body by default. To improve the accuracy of search queries, comb through your article and add words that need more emphasis. Imagine if you have two articles that mention Coca-Cola in the body; the article that has "Coca-Cola" in the Meta field will rank higher if the user's search query is "Coca-Cola". You're increasing the emphasis and importance of that word.

#2 - Underscore Phrasing

Underscores help to tie unique keywords together in a single phrase by adding weight to that exact phrase. "soft_drink" will bump up the article in KB results when someone searches "soft drinks" in addition to searching for "soft" and "drink" as two separate keywords that may exist separately throughout the article.

#3 - Avoid Generics

By refraining from generic keywords in your Meta tags, you avoid pulling too many results. You want to be specific enough to avoid competing results in the user's search query.

#4 - Stacking

To increase the weight of your keywords even further, ServiceNow allows for stacking. To stack your meta tags, copy your existing keywords, press return twice in the text area and paste your set of keywords again. In our example below, we have stacked our keywords three times. This will place greater weight on the keywords than an article that has them stacked only twice. As a result, the example below will rank higher.