Searching this morning for things related to iPhone’s – which is a bit of a routine with me because I love mine, I couldn’t help noticing the description from O2:
Image: Is this an oversight or a last ditch marketing attempt? - over to you o2
Errr, that’s not right…! The iPhone hasn’t been exclusive to O2 since last November when Orange started selling it, followed by Vodafone in January!
Now, as we don’t yet know how this has happened it could be a couple of things:
- an oversight
- or it could be one of those instances where nothing is changed until something is said (I hope not…)
If it’s the latter then O2 haven’t accounted for the potential ‘groundswell’ that could easily follow on from this. If it’s an oversight, it doesn’t look good from a public perception… ‘Schoolboy error’ hmmmm
So what should O2 have changed last November?
The text that displays underneath the link can easily be set using the META HTML tag and then using name=”description” content=”put the text you want displayed into here”. For example, I’ve set mine to the following:
meta name=”description” content=”A marketing resource, helping you maximise the return on involvement and audience engagement through online tools using social media -”
(Quick question for you, does that accurately describe my blog? Please let me know 
)
Now, this text isn’t visible on my site (unless you view the source code), but search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc, display it to provide information to the searcher as to what they can expect to see after clicking the link. (I think now you can see why this issue with O2 is a problem)
O2′s Meta has the following in it (click image to see full size):
O2's Meta Description and Keyword copy -text- error on 25 Feb 2010 (click image to view - open's in new browser)
…And Finally
I see a lot of sites that don’t use the Meta Description, but I can’t understand why as it’s such a valuable resource. People searching for
answers/information etc tend to make a decision to click or not to click based on what ‘text’ is in there.By leaving out the Meta Description, you put it into the hands of the search engines what to put there instead – and that might not be compelling enough.
But remember, if you use the Meta Description then the copy you put there must be accurate otherwise you’ll soon have people pointing out your mistake and that will potentially damage your credibility.
So what do you think? What should O2 do next? Do O2 get this weeks SMASBO? (Social Media Anti-Social Behaviour Order) And if you are someone from O2 can you clarify please?
As always, happy to be challenged and educated…
Update 25 Feb 2010 at 17:30 : Just checked the O2 iPhone page and they’ve nowremovedtheir META Description and Keyword
Mobile network O2 changed their Meta description (sometime between 15.30 and 17.35 on 25/2/10) Click to enlarge - opens in new browser
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