SEO Help - best way to enter keywords in meta tag?

[bobcath]

Can anyone help with this question? Let me give an example of what I mean....

When entering keywords or phrases in meta tag section of web pages is it better to do it this way.....

wedding,photography,howto,take, pictures,basics,photography

OR

wedding photography,how to take pictures,basics of photography

In other words is it better to have single words seperated by comma or is it better to have phrases seperated by comma?

I've been doing it along the lines of the second method above, but have never thought to question it.

Any views appreciated.

Bobby

[TheWinner]

Originally Posted by bobcath

Can anyone help with this question? Let me give an example of what I mean....

When entering keywords or phrases in meta tag section of web pages is it better to do it this way.....

wedding,photography,howto,take, pictures,basics,photography

OR

wedding photography,how to take pictures,basics of photography

In other words is it better to have single words seperated by comma or is it better to have phrases seperated by comma?

I've been doing it along the lines of the second method above, but have never thought to question it.

Any views appreciated.

Bobby

Hi,

I do it the second method. -

wedding photography,how to take pictures,basics of photography

This is how I have been taught and read while learning SEO, and it seems to be working very well for me

[GoGetta]

I would say the 2nd way aswell!

Although I know my SEO, I still don't class myself as an expert, but I would go with the second!

Hope that helps

GoGetta

[summer07]

wedding,photography,howto,take, pictures,basics,photography

OR

wedding photography,how to take pictures,basics of photography

1. Each set of words between the commas is one keyword, so in your first example, "how to" would be one keyword. In your second example, "how to take pictures" is one keyword. So it depends on which keyword you want to target.
   .
2. The SEO nerds (like Google's top SEO guru Matt Cutts) have been saying for the past couple of years that they don't use the keyword meta tag anymore, and lots of SEO nerds have stopped using it.
   
   But other search engines might use them, and even Google might decide to use them again. So it's up to you whether you want to include them. The jury is out at this point regarding how much the keyword meta tag helps for SEO. You'll have to test for yourself.

Hope this helps.

[simmonsmike7]

just a heads up - if you're putting keywords in the keywords tag forget about it - google doesn't count it anymore. put a good title tag with a nice description to increase CTR

[Phil Ayres]

bobcath, no offense intended, at all... but, I think you are "in the weeds" here. Frankly, I don't think it even matters. Frankly, meta keywords tags don't even matter anymore. Meta description tags are more relevant because it enables you to "sell your listing" in the results. But, I would spend next to no time worrying about Meta Keywords tags.

[Allen Graves]

Yahoo does look at the keywords. Leaving them out of your header is just leaving potential money on the table. I don't understand why someone would skip this quick step? Unless, of course, you are only optimizing for Google.

Not sure if Bing looks at the keywords or not.

Allen

[bobcath]

Thanks for all perspectives, interesting that Phil and Allen have polarised feedback, that said one observation is for Google and the other Yahoo.

I guess the compromise may be...do it but dont labour over it?

Any other views?

Thanks again
Bobby

[Trieu]

From what I know the keyword metatag is useless. You should only focus on the title and description tags.

[bobcath]

Hi Teo,

Do you mean it is useless for ALL search engines?

Bobby

[Ken Durham]

I believe some comparison sites and other searches use them.
Personal I spend the small amount of time it takes and do use them.

I would also use the 2nd method that you have.

my 2 cents

[tjcocker]

My view is it can't hurt, unless you're keyword stuffing. So take 30 seconds and put it in for what it's worth.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Yahoo does look at the keywords. Leaving them out of your header is just leaving potential money on the table. I don't understand why someone would skip this quick step? Unless, of course, you are only optimizing for Google.

Not sure if Bing looks at the keywords or not.

Allen

Since google has 90% of the search traffic, I guess that answers that.
Didn't yahoo admit they don't care either? If yahoo is a directory still,
they might. Bing, if it is really an intelligent engine will not either. How
could they? meta tag keyword stuffing would be pretty useful if it
did. But then because of meta tag stuffing, nobody can really put much
weight on it, can they? Looking at the keyword tag and showing results
from it are 2 different things. And many big sites don't use the keyword
tag at all. You may be interested in this:
Yahoo Search No Longer Uses Meta Keywords Tag

There is just no way a truly intelligent search engine is going to base its
results on keywords in a meta tag.

Paul

[Trieu]

Originally Posted by bobcath

Hi Teo,

Do you mean it is useless for ALL search engines?

Bobby

yes, thats right. Putting random keywords within the keyword tag wont optmized for the SERPS

[mloveridge17]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Since google has 90% of the search traffic, I guess that answers that.

Hey Paul... it's actually closer to 67%, which is still the Lion's share. But that means Yahoo & Bing (together they account for about 25%) still have some value. Since they DO look at the Meta Keywords tag, it is still something worth doing... but after other on-page optimization has been perfected. My opinion is that as long as you're optimizing a page, you may as well get it all correct. But at the same time, I don't bother pulling down pages just to add the Meta Keywords tag if that's the only thing missing.

And if you read further on that Post from Paul, you'd see that Yahoo does still index the Meta Keywords tag.

[bobcath]

Paul and Teo thank you!

Also from mloveridge17, who gave the link to the page that the quote below is on, thanks for this.



This quote from Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand...

"What changed with Yahoo’s ranking algorithms is that while we still index the meta keyword tag, the ranking importance given to meta keyword tags receives the lowest ranking signal in our system.
Words that appear in any other part of documents, including the body, title, description, anchor text etc., will take priority in ranking the document – the re-occurrence of these words in the meta keyword tag will not help in boosting the signal for these words. Therefore, keyword stuffing in the keyword tag will not help a page’s recall or ranking, it will actually have less effect than introducing those same words in the body of the document, or any other section.
However, when no other ranking signal is present, unique words that only appear in the meta keyword tag section of documents can still be used to recall these documents."

I think from the feedback I'm clear now, so thanks to all....

Regards
Bobby

[Allen Graves]

I'm not sure I would trust that blog post, Paul.

Very recently I added a rogue phrase into a few of my articles' meta keywords to test this because it came up at my forum. A phrase that wouldn't show up anywhere else. (i.e. moppuppycheese)

Within a couple of weeks, the articles were showing up for that keyword phrase on both Yahoo and Ask.

Maybe they SAY they don't use that tag - but I find it hard to believe that this was just a coincidence!

Try it for yourself. You'll see what I mean...unless they changed it in the last few weeks.

I wouldn't try it on any pages you are serious about, though. You want to maintain the referential integrity of your domain's main pages.

Allen

<edited> Just read the last couple of posts. Should have read them first, I guess.

[bobcath]

Allen

You mean you don't subscribe to moppuppycheese weekly ??

(I'll try that too thanks!)

Bobby

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by mloveridge17

Hey Paul... it's actually closer to 67%, which is still the Lion's share. But that means Yahoo & Bing (together they account for about 25%) still have some value. Since they DO look at the Meta Keywords tag, it is still something worth doing... but after other on-page optimization has been perfected. My opinion is that as long as you're optimizing a page, you may as well get it all correct. But at the same time, I don't bother pulling down pages just to add the Meta Keywords tag if that's the only thing missing.

See now were are getting somewhere. I never said not do them. I said
in the long run, it just won't matter. I also didn't said they never look at them,
just that if they based their decision for search results on keywords in meta
tags we would all be doing stuff for naught.

This is just one example of a huge site with no keyword meta tags, and they
rank at the top across the board for teachers resources on bing, google, yahoo:
teachers.net
Actually, they use no meta tags at all. None. Nada. Zip. It's all in the title for them.

Paul