As a business owner, you might not give the topic of metadata too much thought.
However, if you do anything online, especially if you have a website or digital marketing strategy, then metadata matters more than you think. That’s because even though it may go mostly unnoticed, metadata is essential for how we humans as well as computers navigate and interpret information.
Learn from the digital marketing experts here at Imaginaire about what metadata is, where it exists and how to use it to your advantage.
What Is Metadata?
The purpose of metadata is to provide further information about data.
Detailing a list of attributes about any piece of data helps users as well as crawl robots to best understand the data.
On a basic level, metadata can tell us things such as:
- The file type
- When the file was created
- When the file was last modified
However, since metadata can be applied to all types of digital information (i.e. web pages, databases, social media platforms, email campaigns, cloud store or ecommerce platforms)—it can be used to provide helpful information in endless different ways.
Descriptive Metadata
If you’ve ever searched for a file on your computer or within your Google Drive, have you ever wondered how that’s possible? Descriptive metadata is a huge help here.
Example properties:
- Title
- Author
- Subject
- Genre
- Publish date
The purpose of descriptive metadata is to aid with discoverability, as well as add context to the data itself. In essence, this type of metadata adds basic details covering the ‘who, what, why, where and when’.
Structural Metadata
Structural metadata is used to explain how elements within a piece of data are organised or related.
In web design, an example of structural metadata includes XML sitemaps which specify page relationships and hierarchy. Such data isn’t just important for website navigation but also for accessibility and usability.
Example properties:
- Table of contents (ebooks)
- Album track listings
- XML sitemaps
- Breadcrumb trails
- Spreadsheet column headers
- Parent and child relationships between pages and posts (CMS)
Since data can get very complicated, structural metadata is useful for organising and navigating complex or multi-part resources. Data systems can also benefit, as structural data allows for more efficient interactions between different tools and processes.
Technical Metadata
Technical metadata gets specific about how the data was created, the format it exists in and any requirements the data may need to be opened or modified.
Example properties:
- File format (i.e. jpeg or png)
- File size
- Resolution
- Software used for data creation
Often, technical metadata will be of the most importance when doing ‘behind the scenes’ administrative tasks on your device. For instance, when converting a file type or when preserving data to avoid data corruption.
Why Is Metadata Important?
Metadata is important to everyone because it instructs our devices on how to open and access files so that we can use them properly.
But as digital marketers (i.e. web designers or SEO experts) there is a lot that metadata can do to make us more efficient at our jobs, as well as understand the impact of our campaigns better.
Specifically, we can use metadata to do research, perform hyper-personalisation, track performance, optimise campaigns and make data-driven decisions. On a practical level, metadata can also tell us information about the files we are working with, and also ensure we can organise datasets efficiently.
Imaginaire – Discover Our Digital Marketing Services For UK Businesses
Metadata is one of the many topics that can get complicated, yet it remains essential to understand and harness within your business. This includes when building your website, managing your ecommerce store or optimising your digital marketing campaigns.
If your business needs any help attracting and converting customers online, then the Imaginaire team is here to help!
We’re based in Nottingham and work with businesses from across the UK and beyond.
To find out more about our web design or digital marketing services, please drop us a message or give us a call on 0115 697 1541.
