What is the difference between SEO and Meta Tag Keywords? A long time ago in the Internet world, search engine optimization was a technique to get displayed on the first page of any search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo. You could accomplish this by displaying your keyword everywhere on your web page and in your meta tags. Meta tag keywords were keywords, added into a specific field in the back end of a website. They gave spiders (software programs sent out by search engines to find and index content) a direction what the website or landing page was all about. Doing this right brought you visibility and ranking results on the search engines plus visitors came to your website or any other landing page within your site. With this comes the opportunity to convert the visitors to clients and to increase your cash flow. Many of my students ask me about the difference between SEO and meta tag keywords today. As search engines have upgraded programs and become for sophisticated it has changed the online world for the better. The search engines try to prevent spam sites and their low quality content coming up in the search engine results. But that is just the tip of the iceberg!
What Is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
In the blog post “What Is SEO?” I explained that search engine optimization is really much more as simply adding keywords to content or the back end of a website or landing page today. SEO can be divided in the following three parts:
- Content Worth Creating
- Content Worth Reading – Listening – Watching
- Content Worth Sharing
- Content Worth Recommending
1. Content Worth Creating
Many blog posts I see and analyze are written out of a feeling or assumption. As I work with my students and clients I understand more and more that it is tough to move away and give up the words you believe people are looking for. Taking it as a fact that nobody is looking for “virtual nanny” for example but a lot of people searching daily for “positive parenting techniques” will bring you money in your wallet. To make sure that your content is worth writing, creating and videotaping start with a keyword research. In this way you can make sure you use keywords people already looking for what you have to offer. Content creating on your website brings you organic traffic coming to your site.
2. Content Worth Reading – Listening – Watching
Did you ever read blog posts and you had enough after the first few seconds? Because they displayed text only, didn’t have a real blog structure or were totally boring? To be different, providing value and relevance to the chosen keyword is the key! Your content will be worth reading if you provide unique, educational, engaging and entertaining content through text, images or videos.
3. Content Worth Sharing
Why would you want that others share your content? Search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo don’t care who you say you are but what others see in you. If your blog post gets Facebook likes, Twitter tweets or LinkedIn shares, others show and demonstrate they see you as an expert. Make your content worth sharing but also simple to share by implementing social share icons into your blog posts. Content sharing brings you referral traffic coming to your site.
4. Content Worth Recommending
Link building is the third traffic source, next to paid, organic and referral traffic. Building a link from another website to yours is known as a backlink. It brings you targeted traffic and the recommendation to trust you as the expert in your field. If you do all the suggestions above but still have no traffic coming to your site or sales on your site you want to do an SEO review to find out what you can improve.
When Not To Use Meta Tag Keywords
In the old days spam sites added keywords everywhere on a site or page, had low quality content and could rank number one. Those days are over and because of that meta tag keywords lost their value. Originally used as a guidance for spiders to index content with the proper keywords, in today’s world spiders are sophisticated enough to read through patterns of content and don’t need meta tag keywords anymore to identify a website’s or page’s value. Check out Matt Cutt’s YouTube video message “Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking” from three years ago.
When Using Meta Tag Keywords Seems Smart
Keyword tags for the Google News blog are a suggested for Google-News accredited websites. The news_keywords meta tag is created for news writers who want to write their stories in a creative way but want to help Google to understand what the content is all about and to classify it easily. Did this pertinent information about making your website and blog provide valuable to you and your viewers? Would you like to discuss other SEO questions with me as your SEO expert or check out how your website can be better search engine optimized? Please leave me a comment on this blog post,reach me through my contact me page or book NOW your life changing one hour SEO review and introductory consulting session to online success!