Work at Home

Search Engines and Search Engine Optimization - How Important are keywords?
craftyfable - Aug 04, 2004 - 05:44 PM
Post subject: How Important are keywords?
Does anyone know how important it is to have keywords? Is it key words or meta tags? When I click on View Source on my site, I don't see much of anything. Can having to many keywords hurt? I get different opinions all the time. Can someone that know what they are doing take a look at my site and let me know your feeling on it?
http://www.SimplyNaturalHealth.net

Thanks So Much
Sue
vinyl - Aug 05, 2004 - 09:03 AM
Post subject:
First of all, Mr. Sue, dont bother with meta tags at all - they are useless, except maybe the description one which I didnt find at your site (and which is often ignored by search engines, but it wont hurt to have it).

So remove those two tags (because they just spend couple of extra bytes in your page):

<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">

and add this one instead:

<meta name="description" content="Healthy and Natural Products for Pets and People.">

Your main keyword place is your title tag and it looks good enough to me, because its consisting of your main keywords and its not too long - Id say its perfect, if you are targetting Healthy and Natural Products for Pets and People, or shorter sets consisting of some of those words.

So title is ok, meta description will be ok, so whats the lack of your site from SEO perspective?

First & biggest misake is wrong text formatting - I noticed that ALL text on your website is bolded which is wrong - ONLY important words should be bolded, preferably the one with highest search engine potencial. Also, I didnt find any <h1> (2,3,4 etc.) tags at your website - you should probably add at least one <h1> at the top, in a form of site-title, for instance <h1>Pets and Peoples Natural & Health Products</h1> (or something else, but try not to repeat sentence from title tag too much (note that I already used very similar form in meta description, so if I add the same sentence in <h1>, it would probably be too much)

Beside "unbolded" text and <hX> tags, you dont have ANY image alt tags. You should all that tag to ALL your images. Just add alt="textMessage" to <img> tag, whete textMessage will represent what image is about. It would be wise to use strong keywords in the alt tags, BUT NOT TO MANY of them - just pick one of those keywords from the <title> tag and make logical sentence explaining image with it - use maximum 7 words for it.

If you preform all those alterations, you will get completly search engine friendly site - your page names are apsolutely right, cosisisting of main keywords and separated by dash. But the game doesnt stop there. If you want to improve your ranking, you need more links pointing to your website.
You currently have 11 backlinks which gave your site PageRank of 4. Its not bad for the beggining of the SEO game. You will be in top10 when you have, lets say 4000 backlinks and PageRank of 7. But dont bother with PageRank because it has nothing to do with you ranking directly. Links does. You should get as many links as you can using different methods like (reciprocal) link exchange, forum signatures, writing articles or lately popular - buying them. It may be free, but it requires time and I dont know how much you are willing to invest in it. But for the beggining, adding this code in your forum signature may be good start:

Code:
[url=http://www.simplynaturalhealth.net/]Healthy and Natural Products for Pets and People[/url]


Every post you make will be one backlink. Biz-Whiz forums are search engine friendly as well as highly ranked so it will benefit your ranking for sure. BUT, you shouldnt stick to one site because 1000 links from one site worth less than 15 links from 15 different sites.

I noticed that you have some backlinks from other websites links pages, so I assume you did some link exchange - just keep doing that and you will see how your ranking will increase in the future.

its important that you use keywords in link text, not just link to domain (like you are currently doing in your signature), so alter that too.

That should be it - I covered all SEO aspects of your site and its up to you to implement all that. If you need any further help, feel free to ask, Id be glad to offer you my expirience and knowledge.

Enjoy playing with search engines because they really are the best free traffic makers on the Net,
Mrs. Mike :]
craftyfable - Aug 05, 2004 - 02:40 PM
Post subject:
Wow, with all that said, How the heck do I do it all? LOL My head is spinning. Now I don't consider myself to be totally lost with the things you have mentioned, but I don't know how to apply these myself. You know how some web masters can be. Offer a suggestion, and their ego always gets in the way. I am told that I can make changes to my site using Front Page, which I have, but have yet to try it because I am afraid that I will erase my whole site. LOL.

I am willing to learn, work, and do what ever I have to do to get my site noticed. We have Reps. in our company that have their own personal sites that are linked to our replicator site and making a lot of money from them, so yes, I will do what I have to do for the same thing to happen to me. I will change my forum signature as you suggested. Interesting idea. Thanks for all your help and taking the time to look at my site Mrs. Mike.

Talk Soon
Boy Named Sue
Trent - Aug 05, 2004 - 10:27 PM
Post subject:
I know how you feel. When you are new everything seems to be so hard and overwhelming. Trust me it will get easier.

You say your head is spinning and you don't know what to do. Post some more specific questions and we will help you.

Just don't give up because you feel overwhelmed!
craftyfable - Aug 12, 2004 - 04:49 PM
Post subject:
HI Mrs. Mike,
I have been going into front page to try and make these changes you suggested to my site. I think I found where to make the changes. LOL Do I just type in what you said? Is it supposed to go in a certain spot? and what is <h1> tags? When you say only bold certain words, do I change this when I am editing my site, or change it in the view source? LOL I am soooo confused and am afraid to try anything in fear of messing the whole site up. LOL If I show this to my webmaster, I know her ego is going to get in the way, she will start talking about things I have no idea about and then I'll feel like an idiot. LOL. I wish I could borrow your brain for a little while. LOL. I have a friend who knows a little about this, I think i will ask her to make the changes for me. I will let you know how I make out.
Thanks Again.
Sue
Trent - Aug 14, 2004 - 01:18 AM
Post subject:
Quote:
Is it supposed to go in a certain spot?

I am not sure what you are wanting to go in a certain spot but I can tell you the answer is YES. Pretty much everything you do with tags has to be in a certain spot.

Quote:
and what is <h1> tags?

It is the heading tag. It tells the search engines that the phrase between the tag is very important.

Quote:
When you say only bold certain words, do I change this when I am editing my site, or change it in the view source?

You must do it when you are editing your site. You can't change anything in the "view source". To bold something you just put it between this code... <b>your text here</b>
theuniek1 - Aug 14, 2004 - 08:40 AM
Post subject:
hey sue,
hope all is well with ya...

i actually just finished up a new ebook that might be of use to you - design basics, xhtml, and css (even if you don't know html) - it teaches you the basics of setting up a web page and making alterations as necessary so you won't need to edit everything in frontpage and you'll be able to edit it straight from the code in note pad.

please feel free to check it out and i hope you find it useful Smile

http://www.buniek.com/resources/css-xhtml/cssxhtmlbasics.pdf

you will need to have adobe PDF in order to view it or you can read the whole thing online at
http://www.buniek.com/resources/css-xhtml/

the online version of the book is actually a general idea of what you learn to do in the ebook Very Happy

kind regards,
teli

on a side note...i just realized that your navigation is javascript - you might want to consider using another form of navigation for those folks who disable it (about 10% of web surfers) and for the other folks whose browsers it breaks (makes freeze up)...accessbility will be one of your best friends on the net Smile
craftyfable - Aug 26, 2004 - 07:54 PM
Post subject:
Hey guys,
Well, I have been trying to learn about making changes to my site and have followed your suggestions, well the ones I understand anyway. I still don't know what the <h1> tags are or mean, but will try and learn about them. My next question is, do I need to add a description and title to each page, or just my home page? If you get a chance, can you take a look again for me. I really do appreciate it.
Thanks
Sue
vinyl - Aug 26, 2004 - 08:39 PM
Post subject:
craftyfable wrote:
I still don't know what the <h1> tags are or mean, but will try and learn about them.


Thats good approach - try & buy. :] H as Headings are more than important, everywhere where you have some content - web page, word document or similar - its simple formatting idea to separate titles from sub-titles and sub-sub-titles etc. In Word or other text processors, they are more than great because if you use them like supposed you will be able to create references and index quite simple. Basicly as HTML is made for text formatting, its good to compare it with text processors like Word.

Headings looks something like this:

Optimizing Sue's site

This was the main title - its wrap around h1 tags and gives you the sole purpose of everything else you will be reading below.

Heading formatting

Were just resolving this :] As "heading formatting" is subtitle of its parent, "Optimizing Sue's site", it should be wrap aroung h2 tag.

If you want to add sub topic to this you would wrap it around h3 and so on. Its a simple parent-child tree structure where the highest priority belongs to the top level heading (h1) or simply, the main title.

Search engines love to see good formatting and they give extra values to the words wrap around those h tags. Thats all about them - after domain name and title tag, headings are most valuable in the seo game - just look at top of biz-whiz which is #1 for "work at home" - what do you see? "Work at Home Jobs" wrap around h1 tag. It didnt make site go to top immediately, of course, but it did help.

Usage of JavaScript/Java Applets

theuniek1 wrote:
on a side note...i just realized that your navigation is javascript - you might want to consider using another form of navigation for those folks who disable it (about 10% of web surfers) and for the other folks whose browsers it breaks (makes freeze up)...accessbility will be one of your best friends on the net


Nice spot - I dint realize saw this Java applet at all - thats another issue we have beside all that said - search engines have limited abilities in understanding Java applets/Javascript and Flash - although one day they should all be spidered as supposed, currently they arent good choice, ESPECIALLY for navigation because engines wont be able to see those (important) links at all. I know you might like that, but I think its more than important to change navigation to something more seo-friendly, where simple text link will be the best choice. If you want it more eye appealing, use simple text link combined with image.

Title/Meta description

craftyfable wrote:
My next question is, do I need to add a description and title to each page, or just my home page?


It would be wise to use title which is different and page specific. Same for meta description. They can only benefit you.

The rest

I dont know - I see a lack of content on your index page - its mainly consisting of links and promo images. I would personally put more content there, topic targetted and keyword rich.

Hope this helps you.

V.
craftyfable - Aug 29, 2004 - 01:44 AM
Post subject:
Once again, thanks for the advice. I will have to read up on changing the navigation, good point. OK, here's another question. Is hidden text bad to have? It was pointed out to me and told to take it off. I did take it off the home page, but found it on all my other pages. Can this hurt me with the search engines?
Thanks Again
Sue
bobsc - Aug 29, 2004 - 12:43 PM
Post subject:
craftyfable wrote:
Is hidden text bad to have? It was pointed out to me and told to take it off. I did take it off the home page, but found it on all my other pages. Can this hurt me with the search engines?

Yes, hidden text is bad and should be removed.
seomaster - Dec 01, 2004 - 04:09 PM
Post subject:
Hi there!

Some really nice information you can find at #1 Search Engine Optimisation Blog.

Hope this helps.

Chris
MsKatie - Jun 17, 2006 - 08:25 AM
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Yes...Keywords are very important
lovekissing - Feb 14, 2008 - 02:29 PM
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keywords are your golden key because of this how people come to see your site and improve your rankings...
GeraldC - Oct 10, 2010 - 09:50 PM
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Keyword is very important because it helps you deliver traffic towards your site. So if you build live link you should search first for a good keywords that related on your website.
rohnsmith - Oct 19, 2010 - 04:12 AM
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I think keywords are the most important thing in whole seo.. if you select the wrong keywords and all your efforts would be in vain ........
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