Help Meta-Tags

[Edmond]

Hoping you guys can point me in the right direction. I have built my company's web site and it looks ok, but i want google/yahoo to pick up certain words when people do a search

Am i correct in thinking they are called meta-tags and how do i make them buzz words so they can be picked up, do i have to pay google and such to register them or do i tweek the html so that they are highlighted?

Cheers

Ed

 

[ford prefect]

Use meta tags by all means, but be aware google ignores them completely.

SEO for google is a bit of a mystery because the algorythms they use are constantly changed, but what appears to be the case is that google loves title tags, description tags and h1,h2 tags. Google's spiders are very much content based rather than code based and are remarkably clever, so try to keep content relevent and mention your "keywords/phrases" often. Link to sites that are relevant to your content and do what you can to get good relevent backlinks.

 

[Edmond]

When you say 'keywords/phrases' are these words that should be logged with google somewhere, or just a repeat of the sort of phrases that people will type into a search engine?

 

[ford prefect]

Hi Ed,

Sorry the above post wasn't very well written.

The only thing you need to submit to google (and only if you want to) is a XML sitemap.

Head over to www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ for more details on that.

Oviously I have no idea what your website is about, but try to include phrases that and keywords that you would expect people to use to find your site. It can be easy to get carried away with industry jargon when designing a website, so also try to include phrases that I, Joe Bloggs, who wants to use your service or buy your product but don't know a lot about it, would put into google.

Don't get hung up on submitting to search engines, if you do it more than a few times they will punish you for it. The only really important search engine to get a listing on is one that most people never use and haven't heard of: ODP - Open Directory Project which is a directory which is run and moderated by actual people. Every major search engine looks for links from there and DMOZ links have a high ranking, so take a lot of time to carefully craft a submission to DMOZ and if viable pay for a express submission.

Another way to get fairly quick entries onto google is to write a blog, as google has a dedicated blog spider these days and it updates very quickly indeed. A blog can be a very useful way to keep customers informed but also a good way of getting unsual phrases onto the site as well as capturing passing traffic that happens to be searching for a topic related to your site.

It seems increasingly these days that design has a little more to do with website positions on search engines too. Some people theorise that page performance is something google takes into account too. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but imo table-less design is the way to go these days. Use CSS and Div tags, and keep CSS down to as few files as possible. Also if you host supports it, switch on whichever compression is available, and if your website is database driven, use some form of caching so the database has as little work to do as possible. Also minify java, html and CSS if possible.

Hope that helps

 

[TdC]

just put <META>LOHAN HILTON DIGIMON PORN</META> in your header and you'll get lots of hits.

 

[DaGaffer]

Hi Ed,

Sorry the above post wasn't very well written.

The only thing you need to submit to google (and only if you want to) is a XML sitemap.

Head over to www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ for more details on that.

Oviously I have no idea what your website is about, but try to include phrases that and keywords that you would expect people to use to find your site. It can be easy to get carried away with industry jargon when designing a website, so also try to include phrases that I, Joe Bloggs, who wants to use your service or buy your product but don't know a lot about it, would put into google.

Don't get hung up on submitting to search engines, if you do it more than a few times they will punish you for it. The only really important search engine to get a listing on is one that most people never use and haven't heard of: ODP - Open Directory Project which is a directory which is run and moderated by actual people. Every major search engine looks for links from there and DMOZ links have a high ranking, so take a lot of time to carefully craft a submission to DMOZ and if viable pay for a express submission.

Another way to get fairly quick entries onto google is to write a blog, as google has a dedicated blog spider these days and it updates very quickly indeed. A blog can be a very useful way to keep customers informed but also a good way of getting unsual phrases onto the site as well as capturing passing traffic that happens to be searching for a topic related to your site.

It seems increasingly these days that design has a little more to do with website positions on search engines too. Some people theorise that page performance is something google takes into account too. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but imo table-less design is the way to go these days. Use CSS and Div tags, and keep CSS down to as few files as possible. Also if you host supports it, switch on whichever compression is available, and if your website is database driven, use some form of caching so the database has as little work to do as possible. Also minify java, html and CSS if possible.

Hope that helps

Wot he said. You also need a robots.txt file to segregate the bits of site you do want indexing from those you don't.

 

[Edmond]

woah, ok, thanks guys. Its all a little bit above my head atm, but i will read up on the links you have posted (ford) and have a go at sorting things out

atm if people type our company name in it does hit the first 3 links on the 1st page of google

Thanks for all your help so far

 

[Deebs]

woah, ok, thanks guys. Its all a little bit above my head atm, but i will read up on the links you have posted (ford) and have a go at sorting things out

atm if people type our company name in it does hit the first 3 links on the 1st page of google

Thanks for all your help so far

Edmond, if you get stuck give me a shout. You want to get on the first page if people type in words which describe your business, not the name.

FH submits a daily sitemap, uses SEO urls to gain a higher ranking. Though due to issues with the SEO the ranking has dropped so will take time to build back up. Sucks.

 

[MYstIC G]

That's because it never has Barrysworld in the meta tags!

 

[ST^]

Don't worry too much about meta tags. Structure your content properly (use H1's for page headings and don't use more than one per page! Use h2's for sub headings, etc). Write good content. Use alt text on images.