Today I came across a post at Bridal Tweet that pretty clearly communicated meta-tags, relative to search engine optimization and “ranking,” which are basically the same thing, are no longer relevant.

It actually says you “no longer have to waste your time with this…”

” Meta Tag Optimization. There was a time when meta tags (invisible coding on your web pages) played a large role in a website’s search ranking. You no longer have to waste your time with this because Google has publicly stated that they now ignore these tags.”

Not so fast folks.

I disagree.

Meta-tags are alive and well and should be used as part of your overall search engine optimization strategy. While Google does say it “doesn’t use meta-tags for ranking” I think this is a little misleading.

Actually, if you don’t correctly use a well written page-title tag, that matches the search performed by someone at Google, the chances are your website/page showing up in the top ten listings is ABSOLUTELY ZERO.

Sure, some people say a page-title tag is not a meta-tag, I think differently and for no other reason, and there are plenty, but that it’s found in the exact same location as the other meta-tags between your tags.

Also, confusion over what is a tag and what isn’t a tag sometimes leads people to leave out page-title tags because “meta-tags are dead” - this is always a BIG mistake.

Another way of looking at it, and I tell my clients this, is anything you can do to a page, that is not considered cheating or manipulating, that might help a search engine determine relevancy for your page (i.e. keywords in content, meta-tags, inbound links) is a good thing.

Using meta-tags and optimizing them on your pages is a good thing and alive, well, and kicking.

I think the information Bridal Tweet posted is wrong.

It certainly is not the full story and anyone who leaves out meta-tags, who is competing against someone who IS using them, in my opinion, is at a competitive disadvantage.

Hey, don’t take my word for it. The Google Webmaster Guidelines about meta-tags are pretty clear.

More reasons to correctly use and optimize your meta-tags:

1) Other search engines still use them. Contrary to what they’d like you to believe, Google is NOT the only search engine people are using. Smart online marketers are trying to get quality traffic from as many sources as they can.

2) Even if they aren’t weighted as they once were, and this certainly is the case because now there are over 300 variables in Google’s algorithm versus 100 a few years back, they certainly still play a role in your search engine optimization strategy. I use them and I have plenty of evidence that they have a valuable impact.

3) Google might not use meta-tags for “ranking,” in other words the keywords you use in your meta-tags will not get you “top ranked,” but I’d guess that Google’s crawlers still look at them, index them, and even use them in some cases (i.e. search engine results page description snippets).

4) All of the websites I’ve got top ranked, some in extremely competitive categories, have all used meta-tags.

5) I’ve optimized meta-tags in the past and seen a site jump in rank pretty quickly. Hmm… not dead yet in my book!

Would I say that meta-tags are the magic bullet to top ranking?

No.

There is no such thing.

Ranking / search engine optimization (SEO) is more competitive than ever in the past. Every little detail and every possible variable, all optimized perfectly, gets the sites I’m working on top ranked. And one of those variables are meta-tags.

I highly recommend that anyone with a website and/or blog and marketing to brides online continue using them.

Meta-tags are NOT dead.

Google is probably an important part of your online marketing to brides strategy. A top position at Google is like owning a money tree. So if your inquiries are off noticably, or significantly, in the recent past there’s a good chance your search engine positioning at Google has fallen. Read more …

If you look at nothing else in your Google Analytics, the free website statistics from Google, look at your Bounce Rate.

You’ll find your Google Bounce Rate on the right side of your Dashboard screen (when logging into Google Analytics).

You’ll also find your Google Bounce Rate as you drill-down into additional metrics, like Referring Sites and Content.

The bounce rate metric shows how many people came to your website and left without clicking on another link (deeper into your website).

A high Google bounce rate means…

* A visitor to your website only visited one page - and then left
* They most likely didn’t like what they saw
* You most likely didn’t provide the information they were looking for (so they left)
* The quality of your traffic is poor

Bounce rate is measured as a percentage and a lower bounce rate is better than a high bounce rate.

I’ve heard the folks at Google say a 40% to 60% bounce rate is “average,” but there are a few different variables to consider when looking at a bounce rate.

The quality of your trafffic
The sources of your traffic
The design of your website

The “best” bounce rate I’ve ever seen was 19%. The majority of the website statistics I review have a bounce rate above 60% (i.e. something isn’t right).

Also know that individual pages have bounce rates. As you drill down into your Google Analytics you’ll be able to measure bounce rates for referrers (i.e. other websites that are sending you traffic) as well as individual pages (i.e. most visited pages at your website).

When marketing to brides online, knowing your Google Bounce Rate will help you fine-tune your Internet marketing strategies and ultimately convert more of your traffic into inquiries, phone calls, and sales.

Learn more about optimizing your Internet marketing strategies and join my Book More Weddings ADVANTAGE program today.  Click here for more information.

SEO is not a “set it and forget it” type thing. Not if you want to get your website and pages top ranked.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process similar to building a multi-tiered wedding cake.

There is ongoing SEO, that sits on top of advanced SEO techniques, which are put on top of basic search engine optimization – or the “fundamentals.” You can’t get a top ranked website without building one layer at a time. And like the best wedding cakes, it takes the right “ingredients,” expertise, time, and patience.

Basic search engine optimization includes:

* Creating a search engine friendly, or “crawler” friendly website (design)

* Reviewing competitive sites, their current placement, their strategies (strengths, weaknesses)

* Identifying the appropriate keywords and keyword phrases

* Optimizing page content to create “relevancy” (which is what Google is primarily looking for)

* Building an optimized navigation scheme that is search engine friendly but also user-friendly

* Correctly programmed/written page title tags that are unique for each page of your website

* Correctly programmed/written meta-tags: description, keywords, robots, etc.

* Getting your website recognized by Google

* Getting ALL of the pages of your website recognized by Google (and other search engines)

* Installing Google Analytics for tracking website traffic, configuration, testing

* Installing Google Webmaster tools, configuration, testing

* Monitoring movement (i.e. are we moving up in rank, yes, no, how quickly)

* Making adjustments to pages and page title tags as necessary

* Building inbound links to the website from outside sources (very important!)

In most cases, this is a process that takes between an hour and two hours per page. Keep in mind, these are just the basics and primarily “on-site” factors.

If any of these variables are not appropriately and precisely addressed, it will adversely impact your ability to get pages at your website top ranked.

Also see: New Website Design & Development Overview

Meta-Tags & Google

Q: Chris, I updated my meta-tags and the page title tag on my home page and then checked but Google isn’t showing any changes, particularly in my page title tag? Why not?

A: Changes are not real-time so your expectations are wrong. Updating your meta-tags, or optimizing them, I should say, is a great idea, but don’t expect Google to see those updates or update your listing with them immediately. Chances are it will take a week to a month for you to see anything different at Google, particularly with your page title tag. Google might visit and crawl your website daily, or regularly, but that doesn’t mean they’ve updated their index and the results you see in a search engine results page with any of the information they’ve crawled at your site.

Flash Websites Still Don’t Index Well at Google

Q: My webmaster is telling me Google is indexing and crawling Flash websites just like .html websites now. Is this true?

A: Not true. Google has made some announcements that it has improved it’s ability to crawl Flash websites (all Flash websites) but it’s sort of a “qualified” announcement. Your webmaster will have to follow their guidelines but you should only expect this to help some - not put you on the same “crawlability” scale as a .html/non-Flash website. An all Flash website is still at a disadvantage to any competitor’s website that is NOT all Flash and is optimized for top ranking at Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. That’s what I’ve been saying for three years and I’m sticking to it (for now!).

You’ll find more of the frequently asked questions I get answered by following this link…