Using meta tags in Knowledge Base articles to improve SEO and reduce incidents

[heidi_schnakenb]

Here at ServiceNow and for many of our customers, we rely on detailed, useful, customer-focused content in the Knowledge Base to address customer issues or concerns. Each month we analyze feedback, comments, and customer data to determine the issues that are a top priority for our customers, and then write content based on that data. The goal is to get the information customers need out there as quickly as possible to help them resolve or prevent any issues.

Analyzing, writing, and publishing content is the bigger picture of what we do with our Knowledge Base here, but getting the content "out there" also includes optimizing search results within HI and external search engine results. We not only want you to find exactly what you need when logged into HI, we also want Google to find exactly what you need everywhere else. This is where meta tagging comes in, and it can quite literally mean the difference between an incident being opened or not.

Our recently created HI notifications resource page was made exclusively based on analysis of customer need. Right now, if you search "HI notification issues", the resource page is the top result.

How did we do that? And how do you tag ideally so that a customer's (or user's) search query brings them precisely what they want?

Using Meta Tags in your KB articles to improve search results:

You start by putting yourself in your users' shoes...

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

From there, you create tags that match the user's potential query and enter them in to the meta tag field located before the txt field in the Knowledge form. We typically use underscores to tie keywords together in a single phrase, like this:

Here's where the Meta field is located on the form:

Next, go over the content of your article and determine what other the general keywords and phrases are most important and turn those into tags. In both examples, you want to avoid generic terms that will pull up too many results.

Finally, stack your tags. The Knowledge form allows for stacking meta tags to increase the weight of your terms or phrases. That means you can repeat your search terms up to three times to add weight to it. Here's what it looks like:

Once you've finished developing, writing, entering, and stacking your terms, just click Save or Update and watch the search results and visibility change before your eyes!