No More Meta Keywords Tag, No More Meta Description Tag ... NOT!

Ok, so the news came out today over at Google about the fact that the Meta Keywords tag is not used for web rankings. Is that news? Not to those who have played a part in good SEO. Google hasn't really used the Meta Keywords tag for rankings for years now. Does this mean we should no longer worry about that tag and can even remove it from all our web pages? Absolutely NOT!

Check the video report from Matt Cutts on this topic:


You can find the write-up at Google's Webmaster Central: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

For years, my answer to the use of the Meta Keywords tag has always been:
"The keywords tag won't help with your Google rankings but it will help you with your web page information. It's a great tag to use to help remind you of your focus and the keywords you want to be sure to include on a particular page."

Stop using it? Why?!! It doesn't hurt anything but it may actually help YOU. That's the main take away for the Google report. And...there is still question on it's effectiveness in the other search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, Bing, so...!

I also strongly recommend that if you use the Meta Keywords tag that you use it appropriately. Here are the basic guidelines for the Meta Keywords tag that we've used for years and will continue to suggest to our clients.

Meta Keywords tag:

1. Length of content (36 + or – 12, repeat any word only 4 times).
2. Select keywords that are targeted for that specific page.
3. Put keywords in order from largest phrase to smallest, example: 3 word phrases, 2 word phrases, 1 words etc.
4. Again, if branding is important include the brand or website name as the last keyword.

All of the above items will remind you to not go crazy selecting keywords for a page, keep them focused, and be able to see how they may or may not fit together. The last one, on using your brand or website is also a reminder to not always say "We..." or something other than possibly your actual business name! - Again, all good reminders!!

Then, on top of this "news" on the Meta Keywords tag was a little blurb thrown in on the Meta Description tag. It was stated, "Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking."

Ok, there's some dispute on the Meta Description tag's ranking effects but that's mainly because we actually see the Meta Description as part of a search snippet. Again, I say, use it! But, use it appropriately and effectively. You know why? Because whether or not it affects rankings, it is can be seen in the SERPs. Someone searching will see these words if Google picks them up because they were used and setup appropriately by you. The Meta Description tag allows an awesome avenue to add additional info to help clarify why a page exists, how it relates to the search term used to find it and gives a great place for a call-to-action element. So...we say, USE IT!

Here are the basic guidelines for the Meta Description tag that we've used for years and will continue to suggest to our clients too:

Meta Description tag:

1. Length of content (18 + or – 6, repeat any word only twice).
2. Incorporate keywords from the Title tag, plus a few more.
3. Write the description using statements and keywords from the Title and Meta Keywords tag.
4. Make the description a statement about that web page and what the company does related to that page.
5. Use proper grammar as much as possible.
6. Consider incorporating some sort of call-to-action wording.


Use both of these tags, and others too. We've known for a long time that there are tons (Google says they have over 200 ranking factors) of things affecting Google's main core research of website pages and determination for rankings. And, it still remains that if you know your business, write about your business and represent it as it should be that you'll probably be ok. Don't stop doing something just because Google says they don't read or use it - there's no penalty or issue for using something Google doesn't. Just don't use or do things they specifically say you should not. All they said here today was that they don't read the Meta Keywords tag for ranking considerations and they want people to stop thinking about suing people over stupid things just because they don't get it!. You get it, right?! And if you aren't so sure, then, go get yourself a smart SEO! Then there's nothing to worry about and.... you'll be golden!

5 NO’s of SEO

The worst part of my job as an Internet Marketing and SEO Consultant is that I am always having to tell my clients “no”. It always feels like I am the one delivering nothing but bad news. I am the one who finds all the problems with your online activity, whether internal or external to the site and its pages, server problems, content issues, social media guffaws, link building craziness, etc, etc. The good news, however, is that I get to help you fix all those problems, issues, guffaws and craziness! Then everyone is happy!

Anyway, here are a few of the “NOs” of SEO that I dealt with this last week with clients:

No! When it was suggested that it was a good idea to add a blog to your site, it did NOT mean that you could copy content from another site!

A blog is most useful if it set up to enhance the current information of your website. It needs to be unique and well written in the same vain that a static website page would be BUT it has the advantage of a more personal touch, time sensitive info can go here too, and/or things that might change later. Blog comes for the words “web log” and is a log of things going on presently. If the information is valid forever, then you might consider a static webpage to add to the site overall. Go back to your old blogs and see if they are still valid and move them to a static page too if you’d like – but be careful how you make the move and consider a 301 redirect if the information goes to a new page.

No! When it was suggested to set up a Twitter account for your business, it did NOT mean say whatever you want, personal, political, or opinionated.

For business, a Twitter account is best for notification and newly updated information about the business. Alerts to sales, specials or new blog post and pages can be done here. This is also a great area for customer control. People can get to you easily in Twitter. You can correct any misconceptions, problems or issues here. You can strike up conversations with like minded or complimentary businesses here too. Don’t forget to “listen” here to see what others are doing and saying. You can learn a lot from other Twitter voices! There are lots of things to do on Twitter without getting personal, political, or opinionated.

No! When it was suggested to set up a custom 404 error page, it did not mean that it should render as a server response of a 200 code.

There are several types of situations that can cause you (and your site) grief if not set up correctly – we could write pages on ways to set this up incorrectly. The main thing is to make sure that if you do generate a pretty custom page to use when a page-not-found occurs is to have these two things working:

1) Make sure a server response error of a 404 is generated to the spiders if they find a bad link and...

2) As an extra safety precaution, add a Meta Robots tag to the custom error page:
meta name="robots" content="noindex"

No! When it was suggested that it was a good idea to have a separate area for test pages to be viewed online, it did not mean that these pages should be shared with the search engine spiders and made index-able too.

If you set up a test area, whether using a sub-domain or separate test directory area of the site or even a totally separated URL, using an IP address or domain name then you really must disallow these areas to be indexed by the spiders until they are ready to go truly live. Having test pages accessible can cause you and your site grief here too depending on the reasons for testing pages – so be careful and protect your self until all is ready.

There are a couple of ways to keep entire websites and individual pages from being crawled and placed in the search engine indexes:

1) At the top level of your website, you can, and should, have a robots.txt file. This is a Disallow file where you can easily disallow every page of a site from being indexed or individual directories and pages. You can get specifics on how to set up a robots.txt file and how to use it at this site: www.robotstxt.org

Note: This file allows for other functionality too – again, maybe another post!

2) At the individual page level, you can add the following Meta Tag in the head area of your pages:
meta name="robots" content="noindex"

Note: This tag also has additional functionality, email me for more info if you need it.

No! When it was suggested that an online Press Release might be a good idea, it did not mean it was a good idea to have links in the press release linking to other websites.

Having a good reason to write a Press Release is great and once released that news and information is out there and can spread like wildfire. These releases are posted using online PR sites, such as www.prweb.com, www.prnewswire.com – this list goes on. But the main take away is that the content is not yours. It is not on your site. It is given to the PR sites to distribute freely. Since it is online, you want it written so that you, your website, is the main draw. You want to budget for the extra expense it can cost to add a link to your PR information and you want that link to be to your site! If it is really important to send the readers to another site for whatever reason, then do your best to have your web page linked to first in the article and then theirs in the next! Do yourself (and your site) that favor!

Also, good anchor text for the links/links can be invaluable here too – oops, another topic for another time – sorry! Enough for today! Gotta go tell some more clients “no”!!

Online Branding – big brands vs. little brands vs. any brand

General Definition:
Brand = Trade Name; A Name given to a Product or Service

Google’s Definition (aka Matt Cutts):
Brand = x + Trust, Authority, Reputation, PR, High Quality
where x = whatever name/names given to a product or service (as above)
Synonym for Brand = Known in your Niche

Reading posts and listening to interviews on the Google “Vince” update/changes released about a month ago has me shaking my head at the concerns of supposed favoritism towards “Big Brands” in the Google search results.

I see and hear things about companies having significant ranking drops after this update. Really?? Why?? Who is doing your SEO??

And, what do you mean by brand? I give some definitions above, but, as examples, to me, Nike is a brand, so is Adidas. Starbucks, Arm & Hammer, Kleenex and Ford are also brand names. But, at the same time, Running Shoes, Coffee, Baking Soda, Facial Tissue, Cars and so on are not brands – these are generic terms otherwise known as broad keywords. If, for example, you are not Nike and you do not own the company, the name or the product, but you sell Nike Shoes, are you one of those that lost some rankings? Did you out-rank www.nike.com for the keyword “Nike Shoes”?

Maybe, just maybe, a few quick logical suggestions will clear the air for those sites that were affected by ranking drops and get them to work at doing what they should have been doing all along and/or correct their misleading rankings.

It seems that the “Big Brands” were not affected by the Google “Vince” changes but that the “Small Brands” were affected. Let’s consider why or why not a site might have had ranking changes related to a brand:

1) A “big brand” is probably a “smart brand” because we categorize them as a “big” brand! They wouldn’t be “big” if we had never heard of their name or brand, would they?! A “big brand” is a big brand because they are known in their niche.
2) A “big brand” needs to use their brand so we know that name. If they didn’t then why would we know of that brand?
3) A new brand name is probably going to be the first to use that “new” name before anyone else if they expect it to become that brand. If they don’t use it first then they may lose the opportunity to be that brand as someone else may take that name.
4) To “use” your brand online means you will need to have the text version of your name/brand somewhere online – sorry, graphics are still not actually seen without a text-based alt tag! A smart brand will use that name/brand on their site. If they don’t mention their brand on their site then it’s quite likely no one will know that they are that brand.
5) And if that brand is really smart, they’ll actually own the domain name that has their brand name in it. It might be difficult for a “big brand” to be considered a “big brand” if someone else owned the domain name of that brand!
6) If you do not own that brand but you sell that brand, are you really the authority for that brand? Should you be?
7) Wouldn’t it just be possible that when Google algorithmically sets up certain criteria that affect a page’s rankings that they might be looking at the age of the page, the Page Rank and inbound links referencing that site page by name, notice how many sites or viewers refer to the site page, and see the domain name, word use, and more across the website pages? Do you think Google needs a checklist of sites that should rank over others just because they are a big brand? Should Google have a checklist of all brands? When does a “small” brand cross over to become a “big” brand so they could get on this list? If you really think those are questions that should be answered or discussed then I strongly recommend you start doing a little more research on how rankings are achieved!

The Google “Vince” update/change did not apply to brands specifically. It applied to how you use your words, when you use them, the associations with those words, who points to you using them, and who started using them first. It has been tested time and time again that one can make up a word and rank #1 for that word. Why wouldn’t they, why shouldn’t they. So, start your own brand and see. But you will still need to work hard at developing your information if you want that brand associated with a generic term as well? That’s what trust, authority, reputation, PR, high quality is all about.

I will let you in on a little secret. I did get one client who signed up for SEO Services with me years ago. First thing I noticed is that they didn’t rank for their own name and, their partners, affiliates and resellers all out-ranked them for that name. Well, it wasn’t surprising, they didn’t once mention their own name on their website. They only ever referred to themselves as “we”. Their partners, affiliates and resellers all mentioned them by name. It didn’t take much to turn that one around. They rank #1 for their name and other keywords too now! So, use your name, use the product name you sell or service, use your brand along with the broad keywords describing your product or service, work at becoming an authority, develop the trust, reputation, etc. and you will get your just deserts with rankings and hopefully decent conversions too!! And… you won’t be affected by silly little tweaks made by Google. Also… stop thinking Google is out to play favorites with certain sites when they may not really be deserved! Take your time and get to work rather than complain or blame.