Stripping For Hits
By CaroleNickerson.com, Tue Jan 10th
I have to admit - I was very shy about doing it at first becauseI'd never done anything like it before. But desperate timescalls for desperate measures, so I mustered up all my courageand started stripping. Little did I know just how rewarding itwould be. From top to bottom, I stripped away my descriptiontags, keyword tags and even some that never seemed to have apurpose anyways. Hey, what did you think this article was about?
I hadn't really done much with my meta tags in a long timebecause I never had a reason to... until I looked around andsuddenly realized I wasn't the only niche in town anymore. Itwas only in the past few years that I really had to start wooingthe search engines and actively started building some newwebsites. I certainly did not look forward to using ppcadvertising which I had used since the heydays of Goto.com. (Forthose who don't know - it's called Overture today)
So search engines were my target, but I needed a plan. I startedresearching search results looking for patterns in highrankings. Wordtracker research was another angle in terms offinding low-competing keywords and keyphrases. Three sticky-notepads and two pens later I knew what I had to do.
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Title Tag & Filename - Using Wordtracker data, I would title thepage based on a few keywords or keyphrases and then give thefilename either the exact same name, or a shorter version. Forexample: If the title tag is "Buy Web Page Templates" , then myfilename would look something like"buy-web-page-templates.html". Sort of 'echoing' the title.Since the meta tags I was creating were to be used for articleand product pages, I wanted to make sure I got the maximumeffect.
Keywords Tag - I only use these based on the type and amount ofcontent on a page. For articles, I don't use this tag but willput the keywords at the bottom of the article under "articlekeywords" like you see in article directories. For some reason,this works better. On pages where putting that little keywordrich nugget at the bottom can be a problem, I usually use it asa blurber like what eBay does. For example, look at the bottomof this page: http://antiques.ebay.com/_W0QQfromZR12
Description Tag - Gone. It's much easier just letting searchengines fill in that area and if the page content changes, thenit will naturally change in the search engines. I've long hadthe impression that description tags are something like a salespitch you give to search engines, so that if they aren'timpressed, they won't 'buy' into the content or pay muchattention. After all, strippers don't make money keeping theirclothes on, right?
Now some people will say, "What about the other search enginesthat rely on descriptions?" I say... what about them? You meanthose silly little Google wannabes I tried for 5 years to lureto one perfectly good website only to get 10 hits a month? Yeah,right. Why don't I just host my website at Geocities while I'mat it (rolleyes)
Title and filename have been the most important to me. I'vefinally settled with the conclusion that different kinds of webpages demand different kinds of meta tags depending on the typeof content, how much content there is, how often it's updated,and it's significance on the website. I use a few other tagswhere appropriate, but I like to keep things simple.
There are many, many meta tags to choose from, yet I still don'tunderstand how the majority of them have any real benefit formost webmasters. Most of these tags aren't even used by themajority of top-ranking sites I've seen. Of course, strippingtags is nothing new, but when combined with the rightcombination of keywords and keyphrases, I believe can work verywell. Imagine my surprise when one of my 'test sites' startedclaiming top 5 listings among thousands and often millions ofother websites, with almost daily indexing - but that's reallyanother story :)
About the author:Carole Nickerson has been a web developer and internet marketersince 1998. She now spends her days actively filling up her newblog with all she has learned. To find more free articles, tips,and resources like this visit: http://www.CaroleNickerson.comDon't forget to stop by and post some free ads at:http://www.Leadhitter.com
