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Optimizing for search

Great content is wasted if no one can find it. We create content that's not only relevant and useful, but also easy to find through search engines.

Steps for optimizing content

  1. Do your keyword research.
  2. Prioritize relevant keywords on the page.
  3. Insert relevant keywords in the page’s metadata.

The structure of pages also has an impact on SEO.

Step 1: Do your keyword research

Our ability to lead users to our content depends on the quality of our keywords. The best place to start with any keyword research is to try to understand what our users are searching for and how they’re searching for it.

Ask yourself:

  • What’s the user trying to accomplish?
  • What are they looking for that they aren’t asking directly? (For example, when a user searches for how to start a direct mail campaign, they may also want to know how much it will cost.)

Google Keyword Planner and Google Search Console are the tools we use for brainstorming and validating keywords and keyword phrases. They can help you better understand search behaviour on external engines and give you insight on how many users are searching for a given keyword.

To understand how users search for information using our website, use Adobe Analytics.

Step 2: Use relevant keywords on the page

Use keywords throughout your page, within the appropriate context of the content.

Here’s where you should consider applying your primary keyword:


H1 tag

Apply your primary keyword in the title of the page (H1). Try to keep the keyword as close to the beginning of the tag as possible. This has become less important in influencing search engine ranking, but it’s still worthwhile to incorporate keywords in H1 tags.

Step 3: Use relevant keywords in the page’s metadata

Here’s where you should consider applying your primary keyword:

Title attribute

This title will appear in both external and internal search results as well as in the tab of your browser window. It’s extremely important for it to be in plain language.

  • Use titles and subtitles to summarize the content on that page or in that section.
  • Page title tags should be less than 55 characters in length (approximately 6 to 7 words).
  • Aim to make your title tag different from the H1 tag of the page, so you can rank for a larger variety of relevant terms.
  • Put relevant keywords towards the beginning of the title.
  • Our content management system automatically adds “| Canada Post” to our page titles, so consider this in your character count.
  • Create your own custom stamp | Personal | Canada Post

Page description attribute

Page descriptions are important because they can affect the click-through-rate from search engines. They appear in search results and in social media links, such as Facebook or Google+. Meta descriptions don’t directly factor into search engine rankings, but they do play a significant role in SEO.

  • Describe the page in detail and suggest an action the user can take there.
  • Make each page’s description unique.
  • Limit a description to 155 characters or less, including spaces.
  • For mobile, limit a description to 113 characters.
  • Remember that the French version will generally be longer than the English, but has the same character limit.
  • Create personalized stamps and cards with custom designs or your favourite photos for showers, weddings, thank-you cards, birthdays, gifts and more.

Image descriptions

Images aren’t crawled by search engines the same way copy is. Alt text (or alt tags) gives an accurate description of what the image is. It’s included in the code so that if, for any reason, an image doesn’t load, the text will provide context. It’s also helpful for those using screen readers.

  • Describe the image as specifically as possible within 125 characters.