Blogging

Let’s talk Meta!

Okay seriously, Meta tags, descriptions, and such are buzzing around the web, but how important are they to your SEO? Today I’m going to share a little bit about tags and descriptions and how they differ. I am also going to give you some information on how to write descriptions (after-all, these are what you’re going to want to pay most attention to).

What is a Meta Keyword Tag? This is used to show what keywords that page is targeting. This tag is not visible to the users but to the search engines who read the code for that page. This tag is just a guide for the search engines (it does not appear anywhere but the source code for each page).

What is a Meta Description? A meta description is an HTML and XHTML element that describes your page to search engines. While the perceived (and real) importance of meta data has depreciated, the attribute still plays a significant role in SEO rankings.

Time to decode!

After reading those definitions above, you are probably starting to realize now that Meta Keyword Tags are just not that important. In fact, if you have drawn this conclusion, you’re right. They were at one time important, but no longer serve any purpose or function with SEO. So, for our purposes here, you can disregard them.

Let’s turn our attention to Meta Descriptions. I’d like to share with you 10 tips and bits to help you make the most of them.

10 Tips and Bits about Meta Descriptions

1. Whatever you do, remember to use them, they are helpful.
2. Never exceed 160 characters in length.
3. Bold your keywords and use these in your meta description – it will increase our click through rate.
4. If you don’t insert a meta description, don’t despair, search engines will create a short snippet from elements in your page. (Not the best way to go, but if you don’t get to update all your pages, not a total loss either).
5. The purpose of your meta description is to draw your readers in, so make sure you use your words wisely. Don’t insert useless extra words that you don’t need.
6. Be unique with your content. This will give you the opportunity to offer unique search options for readers.
7. Speaking of unique… every page and post on your site should have unique keywords and descriptions, don’t reuse unless it is applicable to the content on the page or post.
8. Use keyword tools to find out what people are looking for based on your topics. Once you find keywords, write a post around them and use them throughout, including your meta description.
9. Check out this Keyword and Meta Description Presentation on Slide Share
10. If you have to make a choice to focus on keywords and posting great content over a meta description my advice, hands down, focus on your content and keywords. Forget the meta description because it’s not as important to SEO.

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 8 of SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you tomorrow,

Martiel

As we continue our learning of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) today I’m going to delve a little more specifically today into Pages and Titles. These aspects of SEO fundamentals will help you overall and in the long run to rank well. If you are interested in other Tagging, I’ll be discussing Meta Tags and Descriptions tomorrow.

For today, I’m going to share with you 10 things you can do to rank better when creating pages or adding titles. Let’s get started!

10 Ways to Increase Your SEO with Pages and Titles

1. When writing I can’t stress enough how important it is to maintain relevancy throughout your post or page. Do not get off topic, stay on  it.
2. When you talk about your topic give people your take on it and explain it how only you can explain it. Coping other people or paraphrasing is good, if you need an example, but the vast majority of the content should be yours and yours alone.
3. Whenever you have the opportunity, make sure you place your page under a relevant category on your blog or site. It will help people find it easier.
4. Keep your URLs short, no more than 60 characters in length – which means, keep your titles short too!
5. Going back to content again… yes I know, I keep beating on this… but you have to have good, quality, well written content. If it isn’t good, if it isn’t relevant to your site and what you do, if it isn’t contributing to what you have to say on a regular basis, move on.
6. Images, let’s talk about these for a moment. Unless they link to something else, do not include a URL and always make sure they have an SEO friendly name.
7. On pages, it’s important to link back to your home page. Backlinks within a site are helpful and build credibility for your page.
8. Include social share buttons. Pages with higher interactions and shares rank higher.
9. Okay, I’m back to content again… but no soapbox this time. When writing a page, keep it relatively short between 400-600 words. More people are likely to read it and more people will likely share something they finish.
10. Use H1 Tags whoever starting a new section.

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 7 of SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you tomorrow,

Martiel

Keywords can be super helpful at building your traffic and advancing your blog into stardom. But if you abuse them or practice “keyword stuffing” the search engines will penalize you for it and your audience will quickly catch on. This will result in a blog no one wants to follow, read or have anything to do with… well that might sound a little harsh, but you get the picture.

There aren’t any tricks or special tips to keyword abuse or stuffing. The golden rule of keywords is: DON’T COMMIT KEYWORD ABUSE AND DON’T PARTICIPATE IN KEYWORD STUFFING.

So you know what we are talking about be for you delve into the wonderful world of do’s and don’t’s here are some definitions…

Keyword Abuse: Using keywords and key phrases within your website is an SEO technique to get your website ranking high and easily indexed by Google. (Definition provided by Attorney Marketing Designs).

Keyword Stuffing: An unethical search engine optimization (SEO) technique, which leads to banning a website from major search engines either temporarily or permanently. Keyword stuffing occurs when a web page is loaded with keywords in the meta tags or in content of a web page. The repetition of words in meta tags may explain why many search engines no longer use these tags. (Definition provided by Wikipedia).

10 Articles On SEO Keyword Abuse & Stuffing and Ways to Overcome It!

1. Myths & Misconceptions About Search Engines
2. Understanding the Dangers of Keyword Stuffing
3. Advanced Keyword Stuffing (To Avoid)
4. Avoid Keyword Stuffing!
5. Bing Webmaster Guidelines on Keyword Stuffing
6. Google Guidelines on Keyword Stuffing
7. Google Penguin Update Recovery
8. Keyword Spamming vs. Tag Spamming
9. The Basics of SEO Design and Development
10. Keyword Abuse: What Does it Mean?

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 6 of SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you tomorrow,

Martiel