Enough with the keywords already!, from Solopreneurial Tendencies

Enough with the keywords already!

January 7, 2007

Almost every client I have had seems to have very firm ideas about keywords. Even those who spend a great deal of time telling me how clueless they are, how technologically inept they are, insist to me that It's all about the keywords...make sure you include the keywords...they just paid someone hundreds of dollars to generate these keywords - put them in the meta tags for the search engines.

I then try to gently explain the following:

Yes, it's perfectly fine to have some highly-specific, targeted keywords that we can use your content, particularly headings and titles.

And no, keywords in your meta tags aren't particularly useful, and haven't been for some years now. It doesn't hurt to have them (and yes, I still do), but don't spend your hard-earned money on keywords for your meta tags.

This is the one that tends to bring about a stunned silence, as if I'd farted in church or something. One client even told me "you don't know what you're talking about!" Good thing they asked for my opinion in the first place.

What's really important, much more so than keywords, is compelling content that resonates with your readers, and from that will grow the almighty incoming links to your site.

That seems to be the last thing people want to hear, because it involves a lot of work and a lot of patience. There is no immediate gratification, or easy fix. The good news is, however, that with the emergence of tools like del.icio.us, Digg, and dozens of others, it's becoming easier every day to connect with your targeted audience.

Brian at CopyBlogger had a fantastic post last week on this very topic, which dovetailed nicely with my own stewing on the issue: How to Create Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines. I like how he sums it up:

...most of what determines the ranking position of any particular page is due to what happens off the page, in the form of links from other sites. Getting those links naturally has become the hardest part of SEO, which is why 2006 saw the strong emergence of social media marketing as a way to attract links with compelling content.

I'm planning to channel my energies into documenting some thoughts and suggestions on this topic, aimed at the less-than-technically-savvy folks I often work with.

filed under: Good to Know

Please keep comments relevant to the posted topic. Inappropriate or offensive comments may be edited or even deleted, so please play nice. And your email address will never be displayed...just so you know.