10 replies to this topic

[dudleypipe]

Hi All

I'm just entering the SEO arena for my website [site link and reference removed - see [url=http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?act=boardrules]Forum Rules[/url].] and have learnt a wealth of info from this site. But it appears I've read a little too much from too many different sites, and have got my head into a right old mess!

What I have gathered so far is this - please can anyone correct me if I'm wrong:

Meta Keywords are now a waste of time

Meta Descriptions - its irrelevant whether or not your search keywords are in the description. Its useful as a way to entice people to click your listing over someone elses.

Meta Title, and page content are the place to have your keywords, but only to the extent that its useful/readable/makes sense to a user

H1 tags are useful to divide your content up into easily readable chunks, and SE's also use them a little

As I have over 550 pages to optimise, I'd just like to make sure that I get this right first time (or as much right first time as possible, I guess it will be an evolving thing!)

Any help would be appreciated beyond belief!

Kind Regards
Mark

Edited by Randy, 24 July 2008 - 07:22 AM.

[Randy]

Welcome Mark !

Close, real close in fact. A couple of minor corrections.

re: Meta Descriptions - You'll want the keyword phrase(s) being targeted by the page in the meta description. Why is simply to get those to display as the snippet in the SERP pages, so that people get your marketing message right away, causing them to click through. This is not really an SEO thing, but more a Marketing thing.

re: Meta Title - When you say meta title is it safe to assume you mean the <title> tag? Or by stricter definition the Title Element? There is no such thing in the specs as a meta title. There is only the title element (often referred to as the <title> tag) and title attributes. As long as you're referring to the <title> in your question you're right. If you're referring to something else we'd need more clarification.

[dudleypipe]

Hi Randy

Thanks for your quick reply!

This is not really an SEO thing, but more a Marketing thing.

Excellent. I have a couple of other marketing things to throw in there too. As we have a lot of pages to optimise I was looking at using a generic marketing message on there, but I guess the more focused the description, the higher the click through, its better to spend the extra time.

re: Meta Title - When you say meta title is it safe to assume you mean the <title> tag?

Sorry, yes its the <title> tag I was referring to, so all is good.

No doubt I'll be seeing a bit of you guys in the near future, although with the wealth of info on this site maybe not! Its just handy to have some things clarified by those in the know before starting huge jobs like this. I've wasted days of work by not checking things before, better safe than sorry.....

[dudleypipe]

Sorry to drag this old thread back up!

I just read Jill's 'Nitty Gritty' ebook, and wanted to double check something else before I start.

If (for example) on my homepage I have some copy which includes the keyword 'guitar pickup' - should I link the text 'guitar pickup' to the internal page containing the guitar pickups? Do these internal links help with ranking?

Furthermore, once I get down to the copy at the product level, I can't link any deeper into my site, so therefore I won't be making the keywords anchor text. The copy will still have the kewords in there, just not as anchor text. I presume this is OK too?

Sorry if I'm asking daft questions, even though I've been through the 'Avoid Brain Freeze' series of articles, I've slowly started confusing myself again!

Kind Regards
Mark

[Randy]

should I link the text 'guitar pickup' to the internal page containing the guitar pickups? Do these internal links help with ranking?

Yes and Yes.

Assuming of course it makes sense from the user perspective for the text to be linked in the first place.

I presume this is OK too?

Perfectly fine. In fact it's the way it's done 99% of the time time.

[Jill]

If (for example) on my homepage I have some copy which includes the keyword 'guitar pickup' - should I link the text 'guitar pickup' to the internal page containing the guitar pickups? Do these internal links help with ranking?

As Randy said, yes.

But don't get confused into thinking you need to link all instances of your keyword phrase. I'm pretty sure I didn't talk about that in the Nitty-gritty!

The words on the page without links is fine and helps that page rank.

[dudleypipe]

As Randy said, yes.

But don't get confused into thinking you need to link all instances of your keyword phrase. I'm pretty sure I didn't talk about that in the Nitty-gritty!

The words on the page without links is fine and helps that page rank.

Thanks folks, you're all really helpful! Here goes.....

[Michael Martinez]

Meta keywords are not a waste of time if the site uses a site search tool that relies on meta keywords. Just because Google and Microsoft ignore the meta keywords tag doesn't make it useless. With 550+ pages on your site, you'll need a good site search tool (and don't even hope that Google will do the trick for you -- most of your pages will be Supplemental and therefore not fully indexed).

Keep in mind that search is a lot bigger than one or two search engines.

[Randy]

Meta Keywords aren't going to be all that effective for a site search tool either Michael. Not unless you're going to spam the heck out of them anyway. Otherwise meta keywords search tools are going to be awfully limiting, which simply isn't necessary considering all of the site search options out there these days.

[Jill]

Perhaps, Michael, but we weren't talking about site search in this thread.

[Michael Martinez]

I understood that, Jill, but site search is important for a large content site. I feel strongly that people should think about their alternative navigation early in the search optimization process.

It eliminates the need to go back and cover old ground. It also causes less confusion if you explain to your clients at the beginning that they may want to use the keywords meta tag for site search, rather than tell them they don't need it and then have to go back and explain it will help with Site Search Tool X sometime down the road.