Keywords

To make keywords stand out to the search engines I put them in <em> or <strong> tags, but I think I may be overusing them.
Are there any other tags I should use to make them stand out?

P.S. I found a site with some really cool tools you might want to check out http://www.webconfs.com/

It sounds like you are talking about the body of the text, which is included in the paragraph. Really from an accessibility standpoint you should not use anything that doesn't fit, keep it uniform and focus on readability, don't make something bold if it might confuse your readers just for the sake of search engines.

Alex, you may be interested in this link also as a kind of keyword suggestion tool to focus on some of those long tail keywords that may be way more beneficial than making something bold or emphasized text. I kind of stumbled upon it today on one of my SEO blogs I read. http://www.quintura.com/ You will get the idea of what its all about instantly, pretty much self explanatory.

So in short, don't bother using bold when it isn't necessary just to benefit search engines, think of it from a user standpoint.

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but wouldn't it be better to use a meta tag? Ignore me if this is completely off topic...

Cheers mate + rep.

Swagner, meta tags are almost pointless nowadays.

Yeah, you're right. I have noticed that in the past. But they do help quite a bit. At least for me they do...

They help - but only if you have around 10 - no more else the more important ones may be diluted by Google.

Will keep to that limit then

Keyword density should not exceed 5% isn't it?

Dunno - I just read in http://www.websitegrader.com/ that you shouldn't have more than 10 keywords.

Meta tags are not completely useless, they are great for getting the proper description listed in search engines. Meta keywords, hmmm, again some search engines use them but who knows how much weight they place on them. Although, Alex is correct; making your keywords bold, and using them in the text will get your site listed higher within search engines. Just make sure not to go overboard with that, as it can be picked up as a blackhat SEO.

Really? How do you know this?

• Has Google ever stated that their indexing algorithms consider meta keywords?
• Has a Google employee ever stated this?
• Have you reverse-engineered Google?

The wikipedia entry says:

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I was meaning search engines, not just Google. Yes, some search engines use them. I have revised my post accordingly.

No-one really knows if Google uses the meta tags and if they do, how they use them. It can happen, according to some people, that spamming the tags can cause a drop in rankings.

Putting in a word in the keyword tag (made up of a string of letters) and then searching for that word will not result in your site showing - this indicates to me that if they use the tag, they ignore words that are not also used in the body.

The description tag is sometimes displayed when snippets cannot be used - sometimes when anchor text brings a page into the serps, sometimes when using allinurl: commands.

There is no evidence one way or the other if Google use the tags to 'weight' words in the body more heavily if they are also used in the keywords or description metas.

They won't hurt (unless you spam). They will probably help on other engines, such as Yahoo, which does use meta keywords! Sorry for the confusion, but that is all I was trying to get across.

Hey guys. A small question. How do you use SEO exactly?

I'm going to be doing a resource thread soon i think.
Just google "SEO tips" or something for now.

Ok, thanks. I was trying to follow this thread, but I had no clue what you guys were talking about...

SEO, how do you use it? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the art of getting your website to rank higher in search engines like Google. How do you take advantage of SEO to make your website list higher? Well, SEO is a long and tedious process; but it generally involves optimizing your websites code. You can do this by separating your presentation from your structure. (External CSS, get rid of all that table code from within your document.) Then the next step would be to fix problems that could prevent search engines from indexing a site.

For more info on SEO....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

I disagree with this statement

In my opinion there is value in using well optimised title tags in relation to SEO, however they have to be page relevant and be complimented by the copy of the page.

I have recently added 2 new keywords to my website, I concentrated on the meta tags, alt tags and the page content. The keyword 'buy puzzles' took 8 days to get on page one of Google, the other 'business funding sources' took 5 days.

I personally believe everything is important meta tags, site maps, clean code, anchor text and unique keyword rich content. Dismissing anything without factual evidence is foolish. To rank higher than your peers for any term you have to use everything to your advantage.

I dismiss the existence of Pegasus. I have no evidence that Pegasus does not exist; indeed, it is hard to imagine how I could possibly obtain such evidence.

On the other hand, it would be very easy to prove that Pegasus exists -- all you have to do is find a winged horse. So the believer in Pegasus at least has the possibility of finding evidence, whereas the sceptic can never find evidence.

I have no evidence that <meta> keywords are useless. However, I also have no evidence that <meta> keywords are not harmful. By your logic, I must believe both that they are useful and that they are harmful.

Accepting a lack of evidence for a statement's negation to count as positive evidence for its affirmation leads one to believe in almost everything. Fortunately, in the absence of evidence, one can make do with deductive arguments.

Hmm. I think it's hard to prove something doesn't exist.
With proof, you have proof that it does exist. But proving something something doesn't exist, how can you?

@alexgeek: You don't have any proof that it does exist.

I pretty much agree with Mike's comment - nobody really knows (unless you created the Search Engine). All i have heard so far on this matter is pure speculation.

Almost correct.

For a start, you can never prove anything except within the confines of a formal system. So I can prove that there are infinitely many prime numbers (maths is a formal system), but I can't prove that Saturn is larger than Mars (the universe is not a formal system).

We have compelling evidence that Saturn is larger than Mars, but strictly speaking, that's not proof. Proof is a purely deductive concept.

It's impossible to prove any statement concerning existence. You can have evidence for the existence of something, however ("look, I can see it over there"). Evidence for non-existence takes the form, "we haven't found one yet" or "here's an argument to show why it cannot/should not exist".

In the case of search engines, we have limited information. We know little about their internal workings, because those are trade secrets. We do, however, know their business model: they make money from advertising, and the more relevant their search results are to users, the more money they will make (because more people will use them, rather than a competitor's engine). Therefore Google (and others) are highly motivated to index sites in a way that accurately reflects their usefulness to users.

We also know that <meta> keywords have been used in the past to deceive search engines into incorrect indexing of a site. Google (and others) have explicitly stated that they use counter-measures against this kind of deception. It seems logical to conclude that, given the potential for abuse of <meta> keywords, Google (and others) will assign little to no importance to <meta> keywords in their indexing algorithms.

Of course, this is just an argument (albeit a good one). It's certainly not proof, and it's only "evidence" in a general, non-scientific sense.

Note that Google publishes webmaster guidelines to help webmasters understand how to get their websites indexed effectively. Nowhere in these guidelines do they mention <meta> keywords.

Perhaps Google refrains from clarifying this issue because the belief in <meta> keywords continues to distract many foolish spammers with the promise of effortless rankings. While they are working on (useless) <meta> keyword optimisation, they are not working on finding other ways to trick Google. From a competitive perspective (Google vs. the spammers), it makes perfect sense for Google to withold such information. Don't tell your enemy how to beat you.