Q and A: Is a 3 word search phrase counted as 1, 2 or 3 keywords?

Dear Kalena...

Just read your fine feature article at Site Pro news in the Nov 28th issue. In your part 2, would it be possible to include the max character length, max# of keywords that you would recommend be used. Also I was wondering if a three word term such as "widgets in FL" would be counted as one keyword or two or three?

Ed

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Ed

Thanks so much for your feedback on my article. That article is actually half of a larger one I wrote a few weeks ago and you can expect to see the other half in SiteProNews shortly. I think Part 2 will answer your questions, but this recent piece by Danny Sullivan about the keywords tag might also help.

As for "widgets in Florida", there is no official standard in terms of how many keywords you should target on each page or in each tag, but it is generally very difficult to optimize a single page for more than 3 or 4 keywords or phrases. "Widgets in Florida" can be considered a single search term but also covers the individual keywords "widgets" and "Florida" and the phrase "widgets Florida" (search engines consider "in" to be a stop word) so I would describe that phrase as covering 3 or 4 search terms and I would probably stick with optimizing your page for that single phrase and concentrating on other search queries for your other pages.

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Q and A #300: How do I create tailored META tags in Dreamweaver?

Dear Kalena...

Wow - my eyes ache from such great influx of advice - I just hope you can help me here too. We use Dreamweaver, with CSS, but after a little SEO, have found that the same description has come up for every page - no good, as you so rightly say in review of another visitors site: 'You use the same Title and META Tags on EVERY page of your site! You should create tailored Title and META tags for each and every page of your site, based on keyword relevant to the page content.' I couldn't agree more, but the template puts the same description across all pages, and when you add HTML descriptions in css based templates manually, the XHTML comes up with an error, which could potentially disrupt SE's scans. any suggestions please (please, please please!!!)

Liz

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Liz

First up - congratulations on submitting the 300th FAQ to be answered here on the blog! I have a special surprise for you at the end of this post for being our lucky number #300.

But first, let me answer your question. Yes, Dreamweaver creates duplicate META tags in your pages. But never fear - there is a solution. Simply go into the html source code of each page and manually add [!-- #BeginEditable "metatags" --] and [!-- #EndEditable --] just after the editable title tags (changing the square brackets to standard HTML open/close tags). You can see the correct code and insertion example here.

Now about that surprise. As the submitter of FAQ # 300, I have arranged a special prize: a free self-study course of your choice from Search Engine College - congratulations!


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Q and A: Is it better to have single words or phrases in the Title Tag?

Dear Kalena...

I am working on updating the title tag and description for the Cancer Council South Australia to make it more effective. Could you please tell me whether it is better to have single words or phrases in the title tag - I am unsure on the process of how search engines actually use the title tag?

With Thanks
Anne

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Anne

The content of the Title Tag (or Title Attribute to use the correct term) is considered to be one of the more important elements of a page taken into account by search engines when it comes to matching your web pages with search queries. Although there are over 100 different relevancy factors that make up a search algorithm like Google's, the Title tag is considered to be in the top 10.

Another reason why the Title Tag is important is that the content of the Title is generally displayed across the top of the browser AND used as the bookmark text when people add a page to their favorite's list. And finally, the content of the Title Tag is often what's chosen by search engines to display in search results pages to describe your site.

So taking all these factors into account, your Title Tag content should:

• Accurately reflect the page content it represents
  
• Be a readable sentence
  
• Include relevant keywords and phrases
  
• Work as logical bookmark text
• Be enticing enough to make searchers visit your page
  

Read more about how search engines treat Title and META tags.

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Q and A: Is the Meta Description Tag important anymore?

Dear Kalena...

My friend and I are having a debate about the value of the meta description tag. He says that search engines don't index them anymore and so you don't need to use one. I think that he's wrong and that search engines will use them in the search results pages to describe your site, but if you don't include one, you might find a snippet of text from your page being used instead.

Who's right?

Anther

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Anther

Great question! The answer depends on each search engine. For example, Google and Yahoo will sometimes use part of your META Description tag, but they will usually use a snippet of text on your web page that includes the exact search query entered. But if your site is listed in the Yahoo Directory, Yahoo will often use your editor-created description from there. If your site is listed in the ODP, Google may use your ODP description.

As Ammon Johns says in this post at cre8asite forums, the most valuable use of the META Description tag is to write it in a way that is going to convince relevant visitors to click on your link if it is shown in the SERPs. Always write a unique META Description for each page on your site and make sure it accurately describes your page and the content users are going to find on it so you only attract clicks from qualified visitors looking for exactly the information you are offering.


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Q and A: Has my SSL caused my site's Google ranking to drop?

Dear Kalena...

Just last week, when I search for my product brand in Google, my site appears on the 4th rank. My host offers a Meta Tags Analyzer in which I have used to maximize the use of tags and my site has been rated excellent in relevancy, etc...

Last weekend, I bought a Private SSL to secure my site. Now suddenly, when I search for my product brand in Google, it appears on the 4th or 5th page. Due to the sudden jump, I did the Meta Tags Analyzer again and found out that there are no meta Tags keywords detected by the analyser although they are in the index.html. The title and description is still detected but not the keywords.

When I go to my site and right click on the page, all three meta tags looks complete and perfectly fine as it was few weeks ago. I've checked all meta tags files in both English and German under includes/languages, everything is intact. I don't understand what has happened? I ask for help from my host to check this issue and they said it has nothing to do with the SSL installation. Are they wrong?

Chep

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Chep

Let me take your issues one at a time:

1) I've never found a META Tag Analyzer that wasn't shite. I wouldn't bother using one.

2) I see all your META Tags just fine at this end. I agree with your hosts - the problem is nothing to do with your SSL. See 1).

3) Google and most other engines ignore the content of the META Keywords tag so you don't even need to include one in your HTML. Your site's ranking has zero to do with this tag.

4) Your site's ranking in Google will shift almost constantly because of the way they shuffle data between data-centers. It's quite common to see your site swing between two or more different positions month-to-month.

5) Your site's ranking for your brand is almost certainly due to the unique name of the brand and it's inclusion in your Title Tag and META Description Tag. If you remove the "Welcome to" in your title, you would likely rank higher.

6) I'm surprised your site is ranking for anything. Apart from the Title and META Description tags, there is absolutely no information on your home page with which search engines can compare search queries because it consists entirely of graphics. You really should include at least 250 words of text on the page and integrate logical keywords into it.

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Q and A: How do I ensure a page is NOT indexed by search engines?

Dear Kalena...

I want to publish a private page on the web, that only I and a few other people will use. How can I ensure that this page is NOT picked up by search engines?

It will be a wiki style page, so there may be lots of content which could be indexed by the Search Engines. This is what I want to avoid.

Many thanks for your help,

Fintan

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Fintan

There are a few ways to achieve this:

1) Use a Robots META tag in the page HTML and include "no index" in the tag.

2) Disallow the page in your robots.txt file.

3) Create the page in a sub-folder and password protect the folder so only persons with a login can view it. If your host uses CPanel, you can set this up yourself using WebProtect.

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Q and A: How can I increase my site traffic and my AdSense commission?

Dear Kalena...

My site is www.shopitonline.co.uk, and it's been up since November 2005. The traffic I am getting now is near enough to 3000 visitors per month.

I would really like to increase this traffice substantially, and also increase the Google Adsense commission. The Google Adsense has been on for just about a month, and the commission is next to nothing. How can I improve these 2 areas?

Thanks
Saleem

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Saleem

I no longer see Google AdSense ads on your site - perhaps you've removed these since you submitted your question? There are a lot of ways to increase your AdSense commissions. Most of them are listed in my article: Top 10 AdSense Tricks to Boost Your Commission. But be warned, Google has changed the rules for AdSense publishers since this article was written so you should check with their revised AdSense Policies before using any of the suggested tips.

Now, about bringing more traffic to your site, I would start with correctly optimizing it for target keywords. Here are just a few of the many problems with your site:

1) Your Title Attributes are too long, incorrectly formatted and stuffed with too many keywords. Your Title Tag should be a grammatically correct sentence of no more than 15 words, containing 2 or 3 target search keywords/phrases.

2) Your META Keywords Tag is too long and stuffed with too many keywords and contains keyword repetition which may trigger search engine spam filters.

3) Your META Description Tag isn't enticing enough and contains highly generic keywords which won't attract buyers for your individual products. Your Description Tag is often used by search engines and directories to list your site so you want to ensure it is written in a way that attracts clicks.

4) You use the same Title and META Tags on EVERY page of your site! You should create tailored Title and META tags for each and every page of your site, based on keyword relevant to the page content. That way you are creating multiple entrances into your site instead of relying on the front door.

5) Your site contains query strings and presents dynamic content for each page (e.g. http://www.shopitonline.co.uk/default.asp?cat=43), meaning some search engines will have difficulty finding all your content and treat your site as having a single page. If you don't want to redesign the site, you should consider using flat HTML pages for your most important category content or integrating a parameter workaround to switch the dynamic URLs into static ones.

6) I know your site is a directory, but you are trying to target too many generic products and categories with a single set of Title and META Tags. This is a complete waste of time. You should be dividing your content into various themes and optimizing each area for keywords relating to that theme.

In relation to gaining more traffic - I notice your link popularity scores are pretty low. You probably need to conduct a long term link building campaign and attract one-way incoming links from high quality sites and other directories. Try contacting sites that contain large lists of directories and search engines and asking them to link to you. You could also try a Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign on Google AdWords and/or Yahoo! Search Marketing to promote your free directory submission.

Good Luck!

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Q and A: Can you please suggest improvements to my web site?

Dear Kalena...

I enjoy your Q. & A. column and note from your profile that you enjoy looking at new websites. I invite you to take a moment and give my website a look at www.thetreeofselfrealization.com especially the section on partnerships.

Please feel free to ask questions and to make suggestions for its improvement. Your comments will be greatly appreciated and helpful as I try to reach my target audience.

Sincerely,

John

Kalena's Answer:

Hi John

Lots of things will improve your site's search engine compatibility. Here are just a few suggestions:

• Your title tag only contains the phrase "The Tree of Self Realization". Unless persons know the name of your site, they are not going to type that phrase into search engines. You need to expan on your title tag to include logical search keywords relating to your content.
  
  
• Your home page HTML is missing a META Description Tag. This tag is often used by search engines to describe your site in their search results pages, so it shouldn't be excluded.
  
  
• Your navigation menu is entirely graphical, meaning search engines can't index it. I suggest changing it or supplementing it with a text-based menu.
  
  
• Your home page copy consists of long paragraphs of text. People don't read on the web, they scan. So you need to break up long pieces of copy with headings and bullet points if you want them seen.
  
  
• There's no site map. A site map is important for usability and also to enable search engines to find and index all the pages on your site.
  

Happy Editing!

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Q and A: How can I get a top position in Google for my site?

Dear Kalena...

I am Verma from Mumbai. I submitted my site several times on GOOGLE. But I don't have any good results even my site is not listing on top 10 in google. So please can u send me some comments & Solutions . How can I get my site in google on top position...Please?

Verma

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Verma

Tsk Tsk. What a naughty site you have. And I'm not talking about the fact that it's advertising an escort service. I'm talking about the obvious spam techniques and search engine incompatibilities listed below:

• Keyword-stuffed, over-utilized Title Tag
• Excessive keyword repetition in META Keywords Tag
• Duplicate content in the both the Title Tag and META Description Tag
• Incorrect formatting of the Title Tag
• Multiple keyword-stuffed comment tags
  
• Multiple, keyword-stuffed nonsense META tags that are unsupported by any search engines
• Use of Flash in your HTML code placed above important text content
• Use of keyword-stuffed tiny text
• Hidden 1 x 1 pixel links
• Graphic navigation menu instead of text-based
• Use of low quality link farms to inflate link popularity
  
• Excessive use of flashing titty banners (ok this is not technically spam, but it should be!)

I could go on but I'd have to charge you a consulting fee. Nearly all these things go against Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Still not sure why your site isn't ranking? You might also want to check out this post for info about recent changes to Google's algorithm that has affected sites containing adult content.

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Q and A: Should .asp headers have META tags?

Dear Kalena...

Should include Asp pages have meta tags? eg .. < !-- #include file = "header.asp" -- >

Daad

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Daad

No, those type of page elements don't require unique meta tags. The page that contains the include should have tags. If the header is used on multiple pages, you don't need tags within it.

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Q and A: Should I use | to separate keywords in my Title Tag?

Dear Kalena...

This is a great website, there's definitely a cup of coffee coming your way. Wondered if I could ask your opinion on the following.

Title Meta Tags, I was recently looking at a website by a guy in the UK who works for an SEO company, I noticed he had separated his Keywords in his title tags by using the | character. Do you think this makes any difference whatsoever as far as search engines are concerned?

Thanks again Kalena
Graham

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Graham

The short answer is no. If you actually conduct a search for the "|" (vertical bar) in Google, you get zero matches, suggesting that Google ignores that symbol. However, according to this site, Google uses the vertical bar as an operator that means the same as "OR" when conducting advanced searches.

I don't believe this would prevent Googlebot from indexing a Title Tag containing "|", but it may confuse things. At best, the symbol would be ignored. To be on the safe side, I would avoid using any symbols in your Title Tags to ensure your entire keyword phrases get indexed in the order you prefer.

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Q and A: Why does my site rank well on other engines but not on Google?

Dear Kalena...

I have a website http://www.sawestcoasttourism.com/
I am not able to get this site to rank any where decent on Google.
My primary search term is South African West Coast under that term I am ranked No.1 on MSN No. 10 on Yahoo ands No.13 on Dogpile On Google I am no where to be found.

I have followed every guideline provided by Google and as many SEO Forums as I can read but nothing works. I have not transgressed any of the Google No-No's as far as I know .

I am desperate as my whole business depends on this site more and more.

Kalena - please help!

Lucas

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Lucas

I've reviewed your site and here's what I've found:

1) Your site has a Google Toolbar PageRank of 2 out of 10, which either means your site has not been online long enough to build up link popularity, or it may have been given a manual penalty of some kind (doubtful).

2) Your site has 9 backward links showing in Google (other sites pointing to it), but this is misleading as Google doesn't generally show all backlinks pointing to sites, especially on sites with a PageRank of 3 or below.

3) Your Title Attribute and META Description tag are not well optimized for peak search engine performance. They could benefit from a complete overhaul by a professional SEO company or you could overhaul them yourself by following basic SEO principles. If you want to learn these principles quickly, I highly recommend taking up our SEO Starter Course at Search Engine College. You could also look at the HTML code of some of your competitor's sites and follow their lead in terms of Title and META tags.

4) Your HTML code is filled with unsupported and non-existent META tags such as < name="robots" content="revisit after 2 days">. These tags are not supported by search engines and are simply taking up valuable indexing space in your HTML code that would be better utilized by body text.

5) The text on your home page is not optimized for target keywords and phrases that your potential visitors will be searching for.

6) If your site has been live for 9 months or less, it is highly likely it is still experiencing Google's aging delay for new sites.

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