More Web Site Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization continued:

As I may have already told you, there was a time when all you had to do to get high search engine rankings was to fill your keyword meta tags with any words you thought would get searched. You could put sex and guns in your keywords for your website about flowers and you would get lots of hits.

This caused two problems. One, the people looking for sex and guns were not interested in flowers. The other is, everyone put sex and guns in their keyword tags.

The search engines don't take a whole lot of stock in keyword meta tags anymore. Many of the big search engines totally ignore these tags. We are going to fill this tag just on the off chance that it may help a little. See below for what to put in your keyword meta tag.

CODE:

Your two main keywords or phrases will be your keywords.
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="PUT THEM HERE">
In my example I would use computer parts, computer services. Separate each keyword with a comma
Like this:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="computer parts, computer services">

Later, when you are looking at other peoples meta tags, you will probably notice some people will load this tag down with 50 words or more. Don't do this. Fill this tag exactly like I tell you here. Over stuffing this tag is a waste of time and could cause a penalty on some search engines. It will never be a benefit.

That tactic is very old school and it will never help your rankings.

The last tag we are going to fill here is the description tag. Write a nice description about the page you are working on. Use your keywords here without making it sound stupid. This is what most people will see when they find this listing in the search engines.

You want:

Online computer parts and services. Find all your computer needs here. From virus protection to hard drives, we have it all. We will even tell you how to install all your new computer parts and software.

Not:

Computer parts computer service Computer parts computer service Computer parts computer service Computer parts computer service Computer parts computer service Computer parts computer service

If you were doing a search for computer parts, which website would you be more incline to visit? Your description is like a mini ad on the search engines. This little description is how you convince people to click on your link. Make it as interesting as possible but no more than 3 - 5 sentences.

Your description will go in the description tag.
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="PUT IT HERE">
In my example my tag would look like this:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Online computer parts and services. Find all your computer needs here. From virus protection to hard drives, we have it all. We will even tell you how to install all your new computer parts and software.">

Remember, this has to be done for each page. Each one has to be unique to the page. Make sure you do a new search for the most relevant keywords for each page using your Good Keywords program. This is time consuming and pretty boring but it is very important.

Do it right and you are well on your way to getting lots of relevant traffic. Do it wrong and you are wasting your time. Remember the example above? You don't want the wrong people visiting your site. They aren't interested in what you have to offer so they will leave as soon as they get there.

Draw in the right crowd and you will get the sales.

This is the most time consuming part of, on page, search engine optimization. We will be moving on to the easier stuff right here. Please make sure you have all your pages optimized before you move on.

More Web Site Search Engine Optimization