MVC and SEO basics: inject title, keywords and description into views

Almost by accident, I came across Google's starter guide for SEO optimisation and decided that it is a good idea to make some improvements I've been neglecting. Here's what I did so far and how I applied it to the MVC framework.

1. Create unique, accurate page titles

One way to do it with the MVC framework is to create a placeholder on the master page and then override it on the view page.

Master:

View:

For now, I chose the easier approach to set the title in the _Layout.cshtml

And assign it in each view separately

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Main Page - The Stepping Stone Markov Chain Algorithm - MVC Stepping Stone Example";
}

2. Make use of the "description" and "keywords" meta tags

This takes a little more work. Here's my chosen approach: First, make sure each controller inherits from the BaseController. Then create two new classes, MetaDescriptionAttribute and MetaKeywordsAttribute, and inherit them from System.Attribute

public class MetaDescriptionAttribute : Attribute
{
 private readonly string _parameter;

 public MetaDescriptionAttribute(string parameter)
 {
  _parameter = parameter;
 }

 public string Parameter { get { return _parameter; } }
}

public class MetaKeywordsAttribute : Attribute
{
 private readonly string _parameter;

 public MetaKeywordsAttribute(string parameter)
 {
  _parameter = parameter;
 }

 public string Parameter { get { return _parameter; } }
}

In BaseController, override OnActionExecuting

protected override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
 var keywords = filterContext.ActionDescriptor.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(MetaKeywordsAttribute), false);
 if (keywords.Length == 1)
  ViewData["MetaKeywords"] = ((MetaKeywordsAttribute)(keywords[0])).Parameter;

 var description = filterContext.ActionDescriptor.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(MetaDescriptionAttribute), false);
 if (description.Length == 1)
  ViewData["MetaDescription"] = ((MetaDescriptionAttribute)(description[0])).Parameter;

 base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
}

Decorate the appropriate controller method with newly created attributes

[MetaKeywords("C#, MVC, Markov Chain, Stepping Stone, Programming")]
[MetaDescription("Stepping Stone Markov Chain model is an example that has been used in the study of genetics. In this model we have an n-by-n array of squares, and each square is initially any one of k different colors. For each step, a square is chosen at random. This square then chooses one of its eight neighbors at random and assumes the color of that neighbor")]
public ActionResult Index()
{
 SteppingStoneHelpers.CreateNewTable();
 HtmlString table = new HtmlString(SteppingStoneHelpers.table.ToString());
 return View(table);
}

Finally, in the _Layout.cshtml, add the following

All done! There we go, the resulting html:

References:

Google Starter Guide
ASP.NET MVC - View with master page, how to set title?
asp.net mvc - strategy for including SEO information such as meta keywords and descriptions
by Evgeny. Also posted on my website