SEO is an area that all website owners are at least vaguely aware of and most know they need to do certain things to help get ranked higher. Despite the importance and size of the industry there are myths that persist surrounding SEO I want to look in to.
Meta keywords matter
<meta name="keywords" content="keywords here”/>
There is absolutely no harm in adding this information to your site but it won’t help either. Thanks to spammers over using it to artificially get high rankings in non relevant searches it hasn’t been used in search engine ranking factors since the turn of the century. BuySellAds is so confident of this they have the following…
One of the few practical uses they still have is for webmasters conducting competitor research to view which keywords their competitors are targeting!
In fact Google have even come out themselves to say they take no notice of them! You can read the article here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
Meta description doesn’t matter
<meta name="description" content=”Information on egg production, recipes, egg sizes and nutrition.”>
Again, no longer used for ranking purposes but this time it is still worth writing a strong meta description. This is the information search engines use in the results page underneath your title. It won’t get you ranked higher but it could increase the amount of traffic you get.
Buying links will inevitably get you blocked from Google
One of the most prominent members of staff at Google is its head of web spam Matt Cutts (his blog is here). He is often the face of Google when any changes are made and at exhibitions/ conferences regarding search. He is also very vocal on Google’s attitude to buying links and how efficient Google is at finding out when this has happened and punishing sites as a result.
I have seen websites (and they are pretty big brands in their industry) I know buy links disappear from the organic results but equally there are others I know buy links extensively that are very well ranked. If you are found to have done this aggressively you are leaving yourself open to be being removed from the results index, however I would argue that their system of discovering link buying is not as efficient as Google would have you believe. My advice here would be to approach with caution and not be surprised if you do get slapped down!
Creating content purely with the user in mind will get you ranked highly
The following quote if from Google’s search engine optimisation starter guide…
“Even though this guide’s title contains the words “search engine”, we’d like to say that you should base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what’s best for the visitors of your site. They’re the main consumers of your content and are using search engines to find your work. Focusing too hard on specific tweaks to gain ranking in the organic results of search engines may not deliver the desired results. Search engine optimization is about putting your site’s best foot forward when it comes to visibility in search engines.” http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
They are essentially saying not to think about SEO when you write your website content and if your site is relevant for your readers it will also be relevant to Google. Unfortunately from my personal experience in the hosting industry this is not the case. Content stuffed full of keywords that is difficult to read and offers no or little useful information for the reader helps a lot of sites get ranked very well, in fact I personally own one website (unrelated to web hosting) that saw a big jump in rankings when I stuffed it full of keywords!
SEO is influenced by PPC
Not at all. Not even slightly. You can spend millions a year on PPC and get no SEO benefit or spend absolutely nothing and be ranked #1 in the organic results. Simple!
A Google SiteMap will get you ranked higher
A Google SiteMap makes it quicker and easier for Google to learn about your site’s structure, which in turn will allow them to improve their crawler schedule and do a better job crawling your site in the future.
“Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site they might not otherwise discover. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.” http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184
They are definitely worth having to get your site indexed quickly and more of your pages indexed. However, having one does not mean your site will get an extra ranking boost over any site that doesn’t have a SiteMap.
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technically the meta keywords and description are a factor even if it is slight. these sections are used as part of your total page content and therefore effect your total keyword density.
you will also need to identify that each page ideally needs to be unique in the form of title, meta key and meta desc. if these values are duplicate across all pages you are not punished, but you will find that pages do not list as well as they are more likely to be seen as duplicates. Hence why google tools identify this as a factor influencing your results on their webmaster tools.
however, you are correct in saying if these are not present – duplication cannot be an issue (unless the whole page is a duplicate), and keyword density will only be affected by content within the body tags.
I still use the description and keyword tags, I know the major search engines ignore them (mostly) but I still feel its better to have them than not, e.g., directory listings, screen readers etc. may use them.
I agree that Google isnt as good at catching black hat seo as they claim, I’ve seen plenty of sites keyword stuffing with little real valuable content and still out-ranking well written sites.
I love the BuySellAds meta keywords! I was about to make the point that Neil has made about duplicate meta descriptions but I see he has already made it so no need.
With respect to the impact of PPC advertising on SEO, I have seen several instances of sites loosing position for keyphrases when they stop PPC. It’s hard to prove that the change wasn’t caused by some other factor but it certainly makes me wonder…
I totally agree that the actual content presented to customers is very important, and if it is well written the keywords should slide in there naturally. If you’re writing relevant content, it is possible to get ranked near the top of organic results, however I still think that other methods of SEO must be used to improve search engine ranking. Creating ‘original’ content is very important, as you need to attract customers and keep them coming back – unless your site relies solely on one-time hits.
If your content is poor, your website has poor navigation and is not very user-friendly, you aren’t going to retain those visitors. I think static ‘about us’ information is good for SEO, although many do go overboard (as mentioned with the meta information) and create keyword farms and ‘link farms’.
If your content is poor, your website has poor navigation and is not very user-friendly, you aren’t going to retain those visitors. I think static ‘about us’ information is good for SEO, although many do go overboard (as mentioned with the meta information) and create keyword farms and ‘link farms’.
I still use the description and keyword tags, I know the major search engines ignore them (mostly) but I still feel its better to have them than not, e.g., directory listings, screen readers etc. may use them.