A little help with the basics...

[limey]

Hey All,

ref: www.fantronix.com

First of all, I am not a web designer, I bought version 9 and have uploaded a very simple site. My theory is to keep things as simple as possible and as close to the design template as possible (I figure that the design guys as Actinic know a little bit more about web desing than I do).

Anyway to the point; I was wondering if anyone could give me a few pointers on the following subject, mainly SEO:

Google
I beleave that in order to get a higher ranking as possible on Google, I have to make my site and keywords as 'relavent' to the potential customers search as possible. So I am in the process of tayloring each meta description and keyword in the product section to the ACTUAL products I sell (along with competitor keywords). My question is, how many do I use? and what is the difference between meta description and keyword? for example do I use:

Meta Description:
Buy Fans Online! For ALL of your ventilation requirements for the Heating, Ventilation, Electrical, Mechanical and Hydroponic Grow room markets.


Meta Keyword:
Fan speed controller, transformer fan speed controller, silent fan speed controller, electronic extractor fan speed controller, transformer extractor fan speed controller, silent extractor fan speed controller, ety, stl, str, strs, me1.1, me1,3, me1.6, me1.12, sp5025, sp5050, spm5050, 5 step fan speed controllers, fsc3, fsc-3, fsc3, fsc6, 3-ph fan speed controller, three phase fan speed controller

Is the above a good example for SEO in your opinion?

Also, if anyone has any basic help for SEO, it would be much appriciated. I really want to optimise my site, leave it for for a few months and see out it rates so i can consentrate on my web content (in the mean tme i will be cheating with some Google Adwords).

Thank you.

Graham

[RuralWeb]

Tip 1. The meta description and meta keywords are ignored by Google so you are waisting your time by concentrating on those areas.

There are hundreds of threads on the forum about seo and actinic so use the time you would have spent doing the meta tags and have a long read.

[limey]

If Google's algorithm is top secret, how do you know that they don’t include meta & keyword descriptions?

I have read through the topics on SEO and it all seems rather complicated and geared towards ‘bucking’ the system to get a high ranking, maybe Googles algorithms ignore complicated methods to artificially manipulate websites to get on the first page and use information that is a lot simpler?

Call me a purest but surely all Google want to do is make sure they are the No. 1 search engine and to do this, they do their very best to insure that their customer (the searcher) finds the information they want!

For example

Someone ones to buy some grapes on-line, they enter into Google search “good quality grapes by the bunch”

I have a web site that sells good quality grapes by the bunch surely its in Google’s interest to rate me quite high?

The customer gets what they want and we get a sale.

Or am I missing something?!?!?!?!

[jont]

If Google's algorithm is top secret, how do you know that they don’t include meta & keyword descriptions?

META tags were used heavily by Google for the very purpose they were intended and as you indicate above. The web designers found out and consequently loaded them with repetitive keywords. Google spotted this and and changed the importance they hold.

What Malcolm was saying is that whilst they are now largely ignored by Google (there are other search engines out there that use them and not everyone uses Google) they are still used for returning natural listings. They are probably in the equation but the weighting of importance they attract is now slight.

Rather than spending weeks adding META tags building an inbound link campaign would be more useful for example.

In your example I could create a page with "good quality grapes by the bunch" loaded into <h1> tags, META tags and repeated over and over and over on the page with only a single link for Viagra. Would this be serving a useful page to the customer (the user of Google)? Definitely not. Relevance of page is as important as content.

[Mike Hughes]

Or am I missing something?!?!?!?!

No, but that's why Google ranks pages based on their visible content and pays very little attention to invisible content like meta keywords that is easily spammed.

The meta description isn't completely ignored as Google will often show that in the serps. I would say its also used as a trigger for spam and duplicate content.

So, yes, use relevant content for the description but the key thing for on-page seo is the visible content.

Mike

Edit: Ah, I see Jonty has alo posted.

[jont]

as a trigger for spam and duplicate content

Indeed as this is an area that is easily overlooked if copy and pasting pages to bulk out a site.

[leehack]

If Google's algorithm is top secret, how do you know that they don’t include meta & keyword descriptions?

The same way in which you know that you need to open a door before trying to walk through it, experience. The more of this you do, the more you find out what works, what is pointless and where you should invest your time. There is no great secret, simply what you learn over many years of doing it with a nice sprinkling of things you read or pickup off other people.

You could also have a go at reading some of the Google patents, they're supposed to be much fun from what i hear, it's not that secret, just incredibly hard to understand.

[limey]

Than you very much for all your input, you have all been most helpfull.

Graham