Return of Meta Tag Keywords?

Posted by admin on January 23, 2013 under Coding, Search Engines, SEO, Web Design | Be the First to Comment

Back in the early days of website design, ranking on various directories and search engines was as simple as putting some info on a page and then crafting your meta tags. Search engines relied on what it said almost disproportionately to what was actually going on with the page itself.  Its influence was so weighted that it quickly became misused and frustrating for developers who were playing by the rules as they got outranked by people gaming the system by keyword stuffing.

As it became glaringly obvious that the “honor system” wasn’t going to prevail, search engines quickly began to disregard it and it became the bastard child of meta tags. There were some meta tags that were still useful such as the title and description which gave developers an opportunity to convey what the site was about and there was no threat of misuse as search engines simply wouldn’t rank the site if the content didn’t match.

Other meta tags like content type, robots tags, content language, etc. were also no threat of being misused because if they weren’t correct, a wide host of problems could occur including your website not being displayed correctly. Those tags gave the search engines some of the meat and potatoes of how your site was structured.

But the red-headed step child of meta tags was still supposedly disregarded. Dating back to as early as 2009, Google Guru Matt Cutts indicated that Google does not utilize meta tag keywords. But then this year, it was revealed by ex-Google employee Andre Weyher that they do indeed look at the meta tag keywords to help contribute to understanding what the site was about.

It’s insinuated across the board that the meta tags will have no impact on your rankings, but that it does still provide an indicator to the search engines (Google, at least) that it is being used to add to their understanding of what’s on the page.

Additionally, you should make different meta tags for each page you have indexed. Duplicating your meta tags keywords on every page wouldn’t hurt your rankings, but you’d only be doing a disservice to yourself by not taking advantage of an opportunity to give a clearer picture to Google about your site regardless of how insignificant it may or may not be.

Most importantly, Google can smell keyword stuffing a mile away. There will be many who will continue to misuse the keyword meta tag and they’re only shooting themselves in the foot. Andre Weyher stated, “You shouldn’t overdo it. I see a lot of sites with a huge amount of them in the META data. Webmasters need to remember that the more of them you have, the less each one of them is worth!”

To stuff your meta tag keyword area or fill it with useless words like various city names (Atlanta car dealer, Lawrenceville car dealer, Marietta car dealer, etc.), colors (blue car, red car, green car) is a crying shame to waste your efforts on that ignorant decision. Let’s not forget that somewhere in that algorithm lies the schematic of what was once Google’s Wonder Wheel. That essentially means that littering your code with a dozen unnecessary variations is worthless since Google is well aware of the keyword hierarchy.  Variances are fine, but within reason.

All of that being said, it’s time to start using those tag areas again, but to keep it in check. Keep your keywords to a minimum and a good rule of thumb may be no more than 6. Think of the top 5 keywords a customer or potential client would use in the search engines to find that particular page and use them. If the variations are too close, replace them with other possibilities. It’s not rocket science. Don’t overdo it and know that you will never be able to game the system for any length of time. We still can’t believe it’s back again.

Press Releases Have No SEO Power

Posted by admin on January 9, 2013 under Google, Link Building, Search Engines, SEO | Be the First to Comment

by Chris Horton

Maybe Matt Cutts, of Google fame, was in a rare Christmas mood, but in the middle of a Google forum post, he shook up the SEO world once again by announcing that press releases have virtually no effect on your rankings. Something we were well aware of, but still a relief when a Google rep confirms your assumptions. So since he brought it up, let’s talk about this briefly.

Press releases only serve to get your newsworthy item out in front of as many eyeballs as possible. The goal is to hopefully be picked up by a news outlet, be it magazine, newspaper, radio or TV and get the massive promotion blitz that only they can create.

The problem is that most businesses and others seeking to reap SEO benefits have always touted it as a great tool for ranking increases and truthfully, it’s never been effective in that manner.  It doesn’t mean that you should abandon press releases, because they can still be a powerful tool if it’s used effectively and realistically. But what exactly does that mean?

To start, the free press release sites are pretty much worthless. Not only are they misused by millions of marketers, but the media outlets almost never utilize them for their news. Use a true PR agency like PRWeb or PRNewswire for your press release because those agencies have wide distribution models that actually get viewed.  The unspoken media outlets perception is that any release worth reading should at least be invested in by its creator.  Even if your item doesn’t get picked up, you will still acquire a good amount of links on various web based news sites and that does have an effect on your rankings in some cases.

Secondly, make sure that it’s actually worth doing a press release.  Pieces worth a release would be big events that need extra promotion like celebrity appearances, major changes or acquisitions in your business and similar types of events.  Not only will it be worth the investment in time and money, but it will also have a larger possibility of actually being picked up by the media outlets.

The main confusion caused by Matt Cutts statement comes from the misconception that you can achieve a direct ranking push (or nudge) to your site by doing regular press releases and that’s simply never been the case. There are no case studies that we’ve seen that indicate that weekly press releases have any notable impact on rankings, so don’t waste your hard earned money.

As mentioned, press releases should be used only for big events and newsworthy items and submitted via professional press release channels in order to reap the most benefits. Those benefits would be a possible increase in links and increased visibility from individuals that could see the content of the press release.

Matt Cutts statement that you shouldn’t expect the release to provide any rankings impact is essentially true. Press releases are notoriously littered with link bait and keyword stuffing and that practice has severely degraded their worth over the years. Additionally, most of the sites that do re-post press releases are dynamically generated and that practice devalues the quality of the link unless the release is lucky enough to land on a site that is highly relevant to your industry and even then, the impact is minimal.

So with press releases, simply be careful about letting your expectations get the best of you.  If you find yourself constructing a press release for SEO purposes, you’re simply wasting your time. If you can’t imagine your local news anchor talking about it on the 6 o’clock news, it probably is a pointless venture.