How important are the keywords in your site description?

14 replies
  • SEO
  • |
The term I am targeting with my niche site is a 2 word term, it is in the url(which is 3 words) but the 2 words aren't together in the description. For example, if my site was dogtrainingtoday.com and my targeted keyword phrase was 'dog training', my description would be something like this:-

'Free training to make your dog be the best he can be. Includes reviews, advice, products and much more.'

Would the following be more effective, and therefore help me to rank higher?

'Great dog training resource to make your dog the best he can be. Includes reviews, advice, products and much more.'

Or does this not matter? After a few weeks of solidly building backlinks, my site is only at around 300 and has barely moved recently. I'm wondering if the on site SEO is holding it back some
#description #important #keywords #site
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    If you are talking google and the meta tag description,
    not really an issue. Google has put that tag at the bottom
    of their list. Useful? Not much for them. So, do whatever you want.
    Google looks at title and content. Your target should be
    in your title. I doubt if bing and yahoo even care much about
    the description meta. In fact, I see the trend in not even using
    meta tags. I have found many high ranking sites that have
    nary a meta tag.

    Do a search on google for pet shop, no quotes. First page
    is hasbro's toy site. No metas.

    I know google says they "look" at the description, but I think that's
    all they do. Look. They emphasis is on other things.

    Bottom line, do a description as a combo of what you are thinking of.
    But don't think it is the magic potion.

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Jack Chua
    In using meta tags in SEO it very important to understand its purpose. There are three factors that are involved in meta tags, the title, description, and the keywords. The title tag is the most important among the three because it is the reference that would help if the browser would add your site to its bookmark. The description tag is more like the synopsis of your site. The keyword tags are some kind of a index to give the browser an idea if your site provides the thing that they are looking for.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Some truth, perhaps.
      Out of those three, I'd say 95% title, content, and the rest is
      well, whatever your SEO guy (or gal) says you need. As far
      as what's on a page, that is.

      Here is a google support forum on adsense and meta tags.
      Google ads not based on keywords I've chosen - AdSense Help

      I myself would not concentrate too much thinking on meta tags.
      Page content and title are where to concentrate.

      If it makes you feel better, toss up the meta tags. For some it seems
      more psychological than anything else.

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author McBrett
        When writing a meta description I would consider the user more than the search engine.

        Meta descriptions are often shown in the search engine's snippets so people that scan your meta description will use it to decide whether or not your site is worth a click. Try to write something compelling that makes them want to learn more about your site.

        You might as well use the meta description. It's basically Google allowing you to choose how you want your website displayed in the search results. Otherwise they may choose any of your content to display which may or may not be relevant and hurt your click through rate.

        And you might as well toss in a few keywords. If it does play a small role in rankings, you'll get the added benefit of that as well.
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        • Profile picture of the author pikachu
          Originally Posted by McBrett View Post

          When writing a meta description I would consider the user more than the search engine.

          Meta descriptions are often shown in the search engine's snippets so people that scan your meta description will use it to decide whether or not your site is worth a click. Try to write something compelling that makes them want to learn more about your site.

          You might as well use the meta description. It's basically Google allowing you to choose how you want your website displayed in the search results. Otherwise they may choose any of your content to display which may or may not be relevant and hurt your click through rate.

          And you might as well toss in a few keywords. If it does play a small role in rankings, you'll get the added benefit of that as well.

          I completely agree with McBrett. While the description tag hold some weight in google from an SEO perspective, it's really important when a user is looking through search results. Great response McBrett!
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  • Profile picture of the author AvidAZ
    I agree. Write compelling meta tags for users. If you just keyword stuff the description, people often think it's spammy. Not much effect for G, but definitely helps capture readers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    Here's another side of the coin:

    If you are optimizing a lot of pages, it's better to have no descriptions that to repeat the same meta tag.

    Another factor to consider is this situation: If you don't have a meta tag description, Google will extract one that contains the keywords for a user's search.

    For example, your site has this sentence:

    "I took my poodle for grooming before I took her to the dog training class."

    You may have optimized for "dog training". But someone did a search for "poodle grooming class". In this case, if you don't have a description, Google's description will contain these keywords in bold.

    Having the keywords the user actually uses can also have a benefit.

    I'm not saying one is better than the other. I tend to use the meta description tag on smaller sites, where SEO is a bit easier, and omit the meta description tag on larger sites.

    Even if your sites are the same size, I think it's good to have balance in this case, so you cover both possibilities. But if you have more than one site, I wouldn't use it 100% of the time, as you want to do some testing.
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  • Profile picture of the author ametis
    Banned
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  • Profile picture of the author Jenie0109
    Keywords are fundamentally words/ phrases that sums up the subject matter of a site. Indicating your keywords tactically all over your web pages will significantly improve your SERP...
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  • Profile picture of the author janiels
    a lot of people says that meta tags are history, but it doesn't hurt to add it up right? I mean it will help you a bit also in search terms.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mary42
      In order to execute a successful SEO strategy for your website, it is important to know the search trend while selecting keywords for optimization. This data can be obtained from a Google application called "Google Trends". The application allows us to enter in the keywords or keyword phrases of our interest and shows how often the particular keyword is searched for in the past on a daily, monthly or yearly basis. By selecting and creating content using these keywords in your website, you can generate a lot of traffic and improve your rankings.
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      • Profile picture of the author irenef25
        IMO, keywords are the main element which lifts your website to the top position in the search engine. Though the words are in title, description or in content of a website it always plays a vital role to get your site searched in less time. Keyword is the thing which surfer uses to discover the information they are looking for. So, as per the SEO perspective i think keywords are very much important in your meta-tags.
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  • Profile picture of the author Midas3 Consulting
    It would appear as far as Google is concerned, utterly useless as it relates to rankings.

    Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking

    Not only do they pay zero creed to the meta keyword tag, but also zero creed to the meta description tag, at least as far as rankings are concerned.
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    • Profile picture of the author irenef25
      you mean to say even meta-description are not considered for ranking. So, only backlinks are the factors which matters for ranking.
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