Thread: Meta Tag / Key Word Help... Help!

Hi Folks! Please feel free to redirect me to another forum if this subject belongs eslewhere.

Meta Tags / Key Words... The whole business is perplexing. Can anyone describe how one goes about selecting the appropriate words and phrases that will be used to improve the website search results? There seems to be a direct relationship in choosing meta tags on the basis of general subject, page content, and what exists in the page titles. There also seems to be a level of finesse required in creating the chemistry of the mix; something beyond the hamfisted approach of stringing together a bunch likely word candidates and hoping for the best. I've used the 'digger' but quite frankly don't really know what to do with the results.

This one baffles me... at least for the moment.

Enlightenment sought!

Poppi
www.newmexicorides.com

Just choose words that best describe your site, example "motorcycles" over "tourism" and title your pages with easy to recall words. Meta tags alone aren't going to do the trick, search engines look for other tags, links and common sense in designing your site.

http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/sea...-vodahits.html

there is lots of expert advice in this section here ....

You need to use tools to determine what keywords people are using to target the areas YOU want to have them find you in. For example, I just queried the term "New Mexico motorcycles" and found this:

Searches done in August 2006CountSearch Term 231 motorcycle santa fe new mexico 186 motorcycle service santa fe new mexico 90 new mexico motorcycle rally 73 new mexico motorcycle 44 ruidoso new mexico motorcycle rally 40 motorcycle rental new mexico 29 new mexico motorcycle license

This would be a start for you - obviously you are targeting people in New Mexico with motorcycles - rally is another word you probably want to target from this.

Use the words in your titles, descriptions and on the page. Base the meta keywords on words ON that specific page! Do not stuff the meta keywords - and do not put words there that are not on the page.

Do your research - and you'll find the words you need to use. (My guess is the word "bike" should also be used.)

I'll get to work. Thanks, as always, for the good advice Bill, LadyEye, and Bethers.

Poppi
www.newmexicorides.com

here ya go glenmike hope this info will help you out i made a post...let me know if it helped...
http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/sea...at-i-used.html

Hey, Jim, thank you very much! I'll follow your recipe along with the spice advice from the other BV chefs this weekend and see if I can cook up a batch of tasty keywords, etc. I don't mind the effort it it produces what works.

Have a great week!

Poppi
www.newmexicorides.com

Hi Poppi,
There are some other things to bear in mind with keywords. Some guys get a bit devious. They want to include a certain word in there keywords, so a search engine can find them. But this word is not in the page content. Let's use "Harley" for sake of example.

The devious bit is that you hide the word "Harley" behind one of your pictures or something. I believe Google gets very upset about this, and won't list you. You don't want to upset Google, because Google is god.

The next thing to bear in mind, is that your page title must relect the page content, to keep search engines happy. Obvious.

Then there is the point that your keywords, must ideally be repeated a few times in your page content. This gives your marks in the 'relevancy' stakes in a SE. My home page doesn't score well in this area, because I wanted to keep the text to a minimum. Perhaps I should change.

The other thing that improves your SE score, is how many other sites, have links to your site. So swop links. And the more hits the "other" site has, the better for your score. So try and get a link to your site on the pages of a local or state authority, as an example, that might be feasible in your case.

Then, don't pay anyone to submit your site to Google etc (as I did). You can do it yourself. I used Submit Express, and I got plenty of spam from tiny SE organizations that I have not heard of, wanting me to pay to place ads on their pages.

Happy touring,

Another thing that I heard from someone today is say if your site is about "Bowling" you should also use the word "Boling" ... mispelling it, then if a user searches and misspells it you are likely to come to the top ... I guess I should also ask the experts at this time, if this is a good policy or not? Can someone give us an opinion on doing this??

NEVER put misspelled words on your website - NEVER - and also never use bad grammar.

That will send your potential customers running as an unprofessional site and will even lose you points with the se's - who also check your site for grammar and spelling.

Also, you don't even have to submit your site to any se's - they will find it naturally if you are doing your job correctly. And if you do want to submit - use the Voda service of one free submit to all se's.

You do NOT design your site for the se's - you design it to be the absolutely BEST it can be for who your targeted viewer/customer is. If you are doing this properly - you'll also be making the se's happy.

That said, there are ways to use what the se's are looking for to help yourself - like the use of h1 tags, for example. Today, you can probably not use h1 tags, but use headlines without them and most se's will be able to recognize them. However, it doesn't hurt to use the tools that are provided.

Oh sorry Bethers I didn't mean putting misspelled words on your website or bad grammar or anything, sorry if I didn't make myself clear, what I was asking an opinion about was the words in the background of your website, the words that are not visible to the viewers on your page, those were the words I was referring to .... can you let me know if that is different than what you just mentioned .... thanks

If you put words in the background that visitors can't see - you'll end up banned by the se's. Unless you are taking about the meta keywords - and you should never have anything in the meta keywords that isn't on your page.

Ooh, wow, so this would not have been a good idea then, hmmm ... kinda funny cause this guy has been building websites for like twenty years, glad I put that out there and asked ... thanks Bethers ... very good to know not to do that then ... wouldn't want that to happen ...

Thanks again!!

LadyEye,
If you are referring to using wrong spellings in your keywords, I was told and have read he same thing many times.

Things have changed over the years. You used to be able to buy misspellings in PPC - and might still be able to in some - but the se's find all the things that are "black hat" and eventually penalize for them. People only get away with cheating for so long - just like in person.

Bethers,
The link yuou gave me about sitereportcard showing the links broken etc. for a website...it shows 4 of 5 links broken..these links are to fotos and have neveer been linked to anything by me...could it be that they are used in a photo gallery...should I delete the gallery and use single photos placed on page...also if I spell spanish names such as mexico with the accent on the "e" it shows it as a mispelling...should I remove the accent? Thanks for your help, not many here talk about this and I think it is something dreaded but a must for all novices like me. What about the HTML warnings? A thread earlier ***** said not to wory about it, cannot remember of find the thread.

For somethings - you don't have to worry - like the "misspelling" on something you're using with the accent. You and your customers know that isn't a misspelling and these programs aren't perfect.

I use the gallery feature for some pictures and the single photo feature for others - depending on how I want them to display and if I want them to be able to be enlarged (like you can do with the gallery pics when they are clickied on).

If it has a link that isn't working - it either needs to have the link removed or have a workable link included.

If by checking properties can I find the link, because clicking on the 'pix won't do anything if link is indeed broken, so how do I find "themissing link"?

Hey Royden!, Thanks! Mid to end of week was a tsunami of paper for me so haven't had a chance to interact with anyone. Your insight sounds right. I'll be 'digging' into this part of the project starting tomorrow a.m.

Ok, here's another question for you, or anyone who stops by...

My Page Titles should or should not reflect the main title,... examp:

New Mexico Rides! - Home Page
New Mexico Rides! - Information About Us
etc...

or

Home Page
About
Contact
etc.

This will give me a starting point.

Thanks, Royden! Have a great weekend!

Poppi
www.newmexicorides.com

Bethers, LadyEye, Choco777... interesting stuff. I guess it just never occured to me that hiding words behind images, or intentionally misspelling the words is something that one might do to improve search engine results... folks really do this?

This has been very informative. I'll just stick with trying to do it right.

Poppi

Poppi - just like anything else in life - people will try just about anything. Smart of you to stick with doing it right. In the long run, that's the smart thing.

For titles - on most pages, I suggest finding your best keywords for the page and using them first, followed by your name IF it will still fit. The page titles do NOT have to reflect the navigation link to the page, but that does make sense most of the time. Not much else to do for your pages like About Us or Contact Us - but at least you can use your name also, as you showed, and that helps to brand your name.

On pages with important keywords - use those in your title. For example, I just added some new pages on www.achildspalace.com - the page is on the road bedding - www.achildspalace.com/ontheroadbedding.html - but my title on the page is "Kids On the Road (Planes, Trains and Trucks) Theme Bedding" - I left out "at A Child's Palace" on that title because I felt it was already long enough and I prefer getting those keywords in.

Hope that helps (and that page just went live - is brand new :) )

Choco, if it's a BV page - go into the page in BV and have it check the page for missing links - otherwise, tell me the page again, and I'll have a look at it for you.

Bethers,
one link show broken on www.mayatabasco.com/maya_tours.html
it is .../bv/nueva this sounds like a pix that was on a gallery that has be deleted, but I never linked to it.

The net is www.../mystical_chiapas.html
show four links failed and all of them are the pix in the gallery...never been linked to.

If I leave them does it bode bad for me with SEs? Are pics considered linked to a gallery?

Choco
On the maya tours page - something unrelated - you have the links set to be white after they've been seen - which means if I click the text links then come back to the page - I can't see those words anymore - not a good idea!!!

At the bottom of the page, you have a link to the bv websites - it gives me popups (I hate those) and then it doesn't allow people back to your site. If that page is going to refuse to allow the back button (and it does) you don't want to link to it.

You also have at least 2 instances of a red x from "showcases of blue voda sites on this page - where you need to delete these - I don't even think you know there are there - probably are behind other elements on the page - but makes for bad displaying. Those are red x's on the other page mentioned here also. BTW, it's nice that you want to credit BV and VH - but it's not professional to do it the way you are with those - and this is meant to be a professional site - you want to sell your vacation packages.

Also - get rid of the "under construction" symbols - why are they there? If someone should happen to find the site - do you want them to click off because you might still have work to do? Those just aren't worth having there.

If the gallery was deleted - they wouldn't be saying there's a broken link - which means it's something still on the page.

By the say - putting in a url with ... in it - doesn't help you - I can't click it and that's an example of a broken link :) - SE's do not like broken links - but the 4 images in the gallery feature are all linked and working properly - so that's not the problem. I'm guessing there's something else underlying that's the problem. Maybe how you have your pictures named - but I can't be sure here.

I had to quit looking, because you have sound on the website and I couldn't turn it down or off - even though you have a control. It was annoying to others in my house - and I have my sound set very low - but don't want to have to run to my computer controls to turn off sound on a website - you'll need to get that control working. I couldn't stop the sound or pause it - no matter what I clicked on it didn't change.

Thanks Bethers,
Most of those things I was oblivious to, so I'll tear them apart and find the problems, the white text ??? When I check the page sound worked fine. Constructions was advise from forum so I get on the faulty pieces and put it back together, Thanks again you are invaluable to the forum and liked to see you wpend so much time helping as you did today. Sorry about the family.....hope they recovered from the souds.

Thanks, Bethers! Your comments suggest a bit more flexibility (creativity) when titling a page than I was allowing myself. Good stuff. Many thanks for your time.

Poppi

Poppi and Choco - you are both welcome

And Poppi- thanks for being so good about your thread being shared with Choco's questions, too.

Creativity is always a good thing - when used correctly.

Ho Poppi,
By "title" I didn't mean the menu title, I was referring to the title in Page Properties. Sorry, I didn't make myself clear.

Sorry to butt in here, but I have a question for Bethers and hope she will find it here. Bethers, when you refer to the link changing colors once clicked and going back to the page and then it be another colour which can't be seen, - my question is ... Do you change this on the page properties, or is there another place as well that you need to change this? One day I thought I had seen another place, and thought oh there is where you do that, but now I cannot find it again? Do you know, or maybe I had a dream? Thanks, if you can let me know where this is done so that I can check all of mine .... thanks .. and thanks poppi and choco too ...

Hi Royden! Understood. Thank You!

To All: Feel free to share whatever here. I'm learning along with everyone else. All of this has helped me understand the 'background' issues necessary to put a complete site together. Excellent stuff, all!

Everyone have a great weekend!

Interesting side note: I did an internet search for my own page last night. And I DID get to New Mexico Rides! Guess what?.... it was this forum! Strange!!! (:>) Oh well, that was a start... LOL

Poppi
www.newmexicorides.com

Lady Eye,
If all your links are using the same choices, you can select them on the page properties page. However, sometimes you have links that need to have special properties - maybe they are sitting on a different color background, for example (like my navigation links on www.pinatapalace.com) - those I had to give different colors to - you can do this where you enter the name, etc - when you highlight the words to be linked, the window that opens, at the bottom - has a "style" choice - you can go in there and make a name for a new style and give this different choices than other links. Anytime you want a link to use this choice, you'd have to go here and select the new style you name.

Thanks Bethers ... you've straightened me out on that matter ... appreciate it muchly!!

Poppi - that's the importance of linking! The links from here are working for you.

Amen, Bethers, amen! (:>)

Poppi