Where metadata appears - and why it matters

One of the most frequent questions i get asked when designing websites is "What is metadata?!"

In a nutshell, metadata (made up of three components: title, meta descriptions and meta keywords) is crucial in the planning of a website. This is one of the ways that google and googlebots will find your site, in addition to how your website appears in a search engine.

Metadata is composed of words and phrases you choose. These words are put into the html structure of the pages of your website, inside of the head tag.

Below is an example of typing in Canucks into google. You can see the TITLE of the page as it appears as well as the META DESCRIPTION. The META KEYWORDS are words you choose (put in the html file). These don't appear in a browser, but are used to find your site.

CMYK - what language is that?

The most often layer of confusion for clients is when i start talking about their project being printed in CMYK. This is when i get excited, and they look at me like a deer staring into headlights with a slight "huh?"

When you print over 1,000 quantity of your print project, it usually goes on the press. Enough said - this stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. And yes - the Black is 'K'. Plates are printed in this order with 4 plates for the project. Then they are layered together, one on top of the next to reveal the composite image.

These images show how the plates will be separated at the press.

1. CYAN

2. MAGENTA 

3. YELLOW

 

4. BLACK

The composite image looks like this - a full colour pdf image.