Keyword

"Keywords"

There are a lot of misconceptions about keywords, but before I get into them, let's understand the history.

HTML has "meta" tags. These are not visible on the actual web page that shows on the screen. Their function is to give information about the web page to the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.). Meta tags also provide information to search engines.

The Meta tag for keywords lets you list words that are relevant to the particular web page. Originally, this helped in searches for sites/files, but very bad people started using the keyword tag for evil purposes. They might, for example, include their competitor's name in their keywords tag in hopes of getting visitors looking for the competing product. Or porn sites would stuff their keyword tag with innocent, but popular terms, in hopes of getting visitors who would then stay on their sites.

Due to this misuse - which became rampant (there are a lot of unethical people out there), most search engines now ignore the Meta Keyword tag or give it very little weight in deciding what a web page is about.

So... feel free to use the tag - appropriately, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's important. If I use it at all, these days, I rarely bother to put more than 10 words in it.

The Meta Description tag, however, is extremely important. I'll talk about that next.

Gotta get to work now, though.

SEO - The First Step

SEO or Search Engine Optimization means working on a website to improve its ranking in searches. There are numerous components of SEO, from using the right text for a particular web page to laying out the website so that the search engine bots (programs that "read" web pages) identify your business, product or service correctly.

The first step in SEO, though, is always deciding what term or terms you think customers will use when searching. I strongly suggest that you not rely on your thoughts (or mine) alone. None of us uses the same words for every situation or thing.

Think about how people across the country refer to soft drinks: soda, pop, soda pop, soft drink, or if you're like me, it's Coke® (no matter what you're drinking).

So even though you may think you sell widgets, the rest of the world may call your product thingamajigs or whatchamacallits How do you handle that so you rank well for all 3 variations? Ideally, you have enough pages on your website that you can have one emphasize "widgets" while another emphasizes "whatchamacallits" and so forth. If not - and you don't want to add new pages to your site, you should emphasize the most commonly used word (there are ways to determine that) and simply mention the other words where you can.

I'll continue this mini-education on SEO next week, but here are three things to remember.

1. Don't try to make your home page rank well for every product/service you offer or every term you can think of.
2. Probably half your visitors don't enter your site via the home page.
3. Google and other search engines do not share how they rank websites. They give guidelines but they don't share their trade secrets. Successful SEO is equal parts intuition, experience and following the guidelines.

My experience (a few examples)*:

• Search for "Dallas wedding venue" #5 is my client:
  (The Lawton Estate)
• Search for "wedding coordinators Austin" #2 is my client:
  (Belynda Barkley Montgomery Weddings)
• Search for "letter plaques" #1 is my client:
  (Marie Ricci Collection)
• Search for "children's name plaques" #2 is my client
  (for Mercy's sake, inc. Children's Furniture)
• Search for "gourmet cooking class texas" #1 is my client
  (The Pan Handle Gourmet Cooking Tools)
  

*These were the results today. That's another thing to remember about search engine results. Results change. New sites come online, old sites go away, sites get redesigned, etc.
That's why, if you're serious about staying in the top 10, you should either be spending a few hours every month working on it or pay someone to do it for you.

Happy Memorial Day.