website content Archives - Page 2 of 2 by Mark Murnahan

SEO Meta Tags: Oh, You Must Be Another SEO Expert!

I was on the phone with a new prospective client just yesterday and he brought up the use of meta tags. I immediately felt like a time machine had just sucked me back to the 1990s when search engines gave attention to the meta keywords tag. The topic of the meta keywords tag comes up once in a while, and each time I think to myself “somebody really suckered you bigtime, buddy.”

I find it really hard to comprehend how some people imagine that something simple like meta tags will make a real difference in their website ranking in search engines. It is as if they think they have really out-smarted all the technicians over at Google, Yahoo, Bing, and etcetera, with this cool trick called a meta keyword tag.

As long as there are people who ask “do meta tags help with SEO” there will be plenty of people to con them out of their money.

Why can’t the meta keywords myth just die? There was a day when a good SEO could outsmart a search engine with tricky little tactics like this, but how can somebody in 2010 really think that there is such a simple way to outrank billions of other pages vying for search engine rankings? Do these people really think they were the first on the scene and they have uncovered the golden key to the Internet? Come on … anybody smart enough to tie their shoe should be able to reason this out with just one little “duh, I guess this kind of makes sense” moment of reality-checking.

I still hear people talk about meta keywords from time to time, and more often than I like. I guess maybe it is just some people’s way of trying to sound like an expert. Maybe they will sound like they did their homework if they can start a discussion of meta tags when they call the SEO. Seriously, is that what people think my job is as a search engine optimizer … to strike up some good keywords and feed them into the back door of Google? That is either totally absurd, or so brilliant that I want to choke myself for being so dumb I didn’t think of this sooner. Perhaps all I really needed to do all this time was add some meta tags to my websites. Gosh, I have wasted so many years of my life creating useful and amazing website content that people link to and share with others. I should be punished for being so slow to catch on to this one simple fix that could have made me the king of Internet search. I guess maybe all of the SEO lessons that I have authored over the past decade and a half are useless.

OK, enough of the sarcasm … I had my fun. The fact is that although you will still see sites using the meta keywords tag, it is as my grandpappy would say: “about as useful as teets on a boar hog.” For those of you big city folks, that means boobs on a boy pig. They don’t feed the piglets, and meta keywords will not feed you, either.

Google’s Matt Cutts on Meta Keywords

There has been so much speculation of the usefulness of meta keywords that if we were sitting in a bar, I would curse like an angry sailor to make my point. My wife says that makes me sound less intelligent, and since we are not having beers together, I will just give you good solid references. Here is what Matt Cutts from Google has to say on the topic of meta keywords. In his words, “we don’t use that information in our ranking, even the least little bit.”

Here is another interesting article that I found from Search Engine Land about meta keywords.

When Meta Keywords Mattered

There was a time when the keywords meta tag mattered to search engines. It was designed to help search engines understand the overall emphasis of the page. That was a great idea to make the Internet easier for search engines to index all of the Web’s content. A few search engines even chose to use the information, but that only lasted just a short time before people started trying to attract searches for Brittany Spears and Madonna to their completely unrelated website about treating bedsores. It never really worked all that great, because above all, search engines have always read the visible text of websites, and the links pointing to the website. By the way, invisible text (text that is the same color as the page background) is also a huge mistake that a few idiots still think is a good idea, but that is another blog post.

If you really think that something so easy as a meta keywords tag is going to drive traffic to your website, ask yourself how logical that really sounds. If some slick talking SEO somewhere convinced you that meta keywords will help, take your money to the grocery store now, before that slick talker takes all your money and leaves you hungry.

Which Meta Tags Matter?

There are a couple meta tags that actually matter, so don’t just assume that all meta tags are totally useless. The meta description tag is quite important, and is often used to display a description of the page in search engines (unless there is more relevant on-page content to display). The “robots meta tag” will direct search engines to follow links on the page or not, and whether to index the page or not. This is also why we have a “robots.txt” file. The “Content-Type” meta tag tells computers the character encoding of the page. Yes, there is useful meta data in a web page, just as with any other computer file.

While I wonder why the keywords meta tag myths still circulate, I think it must just be because people want to sound smarter than they really are about the SEO industry. If you can make it sound like some really advanced programming skill is involved, it must be more important. I mean (in a booming voice) “meta keywords tag” sure does sound “techie” and important, right? So why do they even exist if they are not used by search engines? I think it is simply because of habits and lingering myths that most of the meta keywords tags on the Internet still exist. After all, there are still some meta keywords right here on my blog. I guess mostly because I have been too lazy to remove them and they don’t actually hurt anything. However, if you look at the source code on this page, you will not see a keywords meta tag, but I assure you it will still rank really nicely in search engine results.

If you still just must decorate the behind-the-scenes head section of your website, here is a meta tag generator that I wrote sometime back in 2001 or earlier. I do not know an exact date off hand, but I was able to find it in the Internet archive at archive.org from Jan 2002 (hilarious archived version). Maybe you will find it to be a cool tool, but just don’t count on those meta keywords to feed your family.

Improve Local Search Marketing with Global Authority

I recently visited with a local search engine optimization (SEO) client who did not understand the value of blogging about things outside his local market and having items of global interest on his website. He believed that focusing more on things local to him were of the highest importance. It got me to thinking that a lot of people with a local marketing focus may have similar belief. I want to shed a little light on the subject and explain why globally appealing content can create huge benefits to local search results.

Since I have been in my industry for well over a decade, I sometimes forget to break things down and make them really simple for those who are less familiar with my work. That is what I want to do today. I will try to make this easy to understand.

Local Search Marketing Made Easy

I notice a lot of people trying really hard to accomplish local search marketing goals by focusing on website content about local topics. These things have their place, but a common mistake I find is people attempting to tap into the same local resources that all of their competitors are using. It is a sad shame that many of these people are just wasting a lot of time imitating failure.

If you want to know an easier way to improve local search marketing results, try looking outside of your back yard and appeal to people on a broader basis. With a global audience on your side, beating the local competition is easy.

Website Authority is Authority, Wherever the Location

When you produce information on your website that is relevant to your industry, whether in your local market or globally, it enhances your authority. It can do this in a number of ways. It gives more potential terms that people can search for and find your website, but you just want the local ones … I get that. I understand how you could think that somebody finding your website in an outside market may not seem very useful, but it is! It is extremely useful, and in fact, even more useful than all the locally focused content put together.

You may wonder why this is the case. Simply put, information with broader and less localized appeal will help to enhance and grow the incoming links to your website. This means links that point to your website from other websites. Links create quantifiable authority by showing search engines that other people see you as a quality point of reference. Now you may wonder how the broader appeal will build valuable links to your website. I will explain.

Local Content Means Local Links, But You Need Diversity!

If you spend much of your effort trying to focus only on local matters and excluding the rest of the world, you are making a costly mistake. You may find some people linking to your website, but it will be far less diverse, and far less beneficial than a wider global reach. Sure, a link from your local newspaper or television station is great, and it will certainly give emphasis to your location, but location is not the real battle here. It is easy to show where you are, but you need to be an authority in what you do and not just where you are.

With too much focus on location, you will be less likely to find people linking to your website from all around the world, and geographical diversity of incoming links matters … it matters a lot! The way you get this to happen is by producing things with a widespread appeal that will be picked up by bloggers looking for a resource to cite, users in forums looking for a link to reference a given topic, and other social media users who like your message enough to share it. This will only happen if it has relevance to them. If you focus on local issues that hold little relevance outside your market area, you are neglecting these people who may otherwise share the information with others. They will share it with others by using links to your website.

Do Incoming Links Really Matter?

I think a lot of people will underestimate the importance of the links pointing to their website. The value of these incoming links is not the people who click on them, but rather the search engines that follow those links and add them all up to determine your overall authority within your industry. If you want to know how to do the equivalent of killing a grizzly bear with a looseleaf notebook, you better stick around and read the article titled “SEO Backlinks: Why Most SEO Fail at Link Building“ When you have enough backlinks (links pointing to your website from other websites), you can put just about anything you want on your website and expect it to rank highly in search engines … local or not. For example, if you search Google for “unicorn hunting expedition” you will easily find my blog right on top. Similarly, if you Google “unicorn hunting expedition Topeka” I am still right there where my local market can find me.

Search Engines Know Your Location

Another factor of local search that should never be overlooked is that search engines pay attention to where you are located when you perform a search. When people search for something that has a lot of local results, all other things being equal, the local results will be given preference. Most search engine users do not override the local search settings of Google and other search engines, and many do not even know they exist. This is just another reason that you will do well to focus on useful and creative content that appeals beyond your back door. Again, I will remind you that you need to show authority in what you do, rather than trying to build emphasis of where you are located.

I welcome your comments here on my blog, or you may respond privately if you are feeling shy.

Benefits of Blogging You May Have Overlooked

I took a short break from my blog over the past week. I was very busy with other projects, and it gave me some time to consider why I blog and the benefits I receive from it. While I was away, I thought about some less obvious ways it helps me in my business. Some obvious benefits to a blog are easy to list, in fact, here are 10 really good reasons to blog. I want to share a couple additional benefits I consider to be extremely important, and perhaps you can relate to these as well. If you have a blog, I want you to think about those ways it benefits you and how you can further harness those benefits. If you do not have a blog or you are not blogging enough, I want to give you positive encouragement and help you recognize reasons you should.

Blogging as a Thought Portfolio

I want more business, and I know a lot of people feel the same way. In my case, I do not just want more business … I want better business. Blogging helps me to achieve this, because it allows my potential clients to have a better understanding of my work as a marketing guy. It allows people to know a whole lot about what I do and how I do it, before they even pick up the phone and call me. It provides excellent proof that I really know what I am doing with SEO, social media, and other Internet marketing topics. Here is my blog archive. It is like a window to my mind as it relates to my work. The people who spend a lot of time here before they call me are always better clients, because they already know we will make a good fit. That means better business, and not just more business.

Think about how blogging could benefit you in this way. Regardless of your industry, being useful to others and showing what you know and how you think can be very attractive to potential customers … the best customers.

Blogging as a Sales Tool

I am not the salesman type. I give great factual data and I let people make decisions based on real information. I like for people to make their own decisions. People who cannot see the benefits of my marketing services without my having to poke and prod them with a big sales pitch do not make good clients for me. If a business relationship begins with a salesperson pushing to convince somebody to buy, you can bet there will be a lot of hassle down the road.

I realized a long time ago that chatting somebody’s ear off to sell them something they are unsure of is about the last thing I could ever hope to do for a living. I think I would rather be a professional house mover, and with this body, I don’t see that happening.

Even when people email me or call me, I can often either reference something I already produced on my blog or give them an article to read about the given topic. Having so many of my thoughts and ideas laid out on my blog and indexed nicely by Google makes an invaluable tool when I need to answer a question for somebody. Just having written the information also makes it easier for me to have words to answer the question.

Give it some thought about how your blog or other website may be an excellent sales tool beyond just those nameless and faceless people on the Internet. You may find a blog to be extremely useful, because it already says all the things you want to say, and can prevent a lot of wasted breath. In my case, I find that if somebody is not willing to do some recommended reading about what I offer, they are probably not too serious about doing business with me anyway.

Other Blogging Benefits and Tools

Blogging holds extremely high value when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) and it is at the core of good social media marketing. If you feel that you just don’t have the time for it, by all means, hire it out. If you feel that blogging is not important or does not have a benefit in store for you, reading the following articles will surely convince you otherwise. I am confident that there is information in these past articles on my blog that will provide value to you and help your business pursuits. Take a moment and find out for yourself.

10 Really Good Reasons to Blog
If you think blogging is just for geeks or those with extra time on their hands, think again! If you ever wondered if you should be blogging, or why to continue blogging, this list will give you very strong reasons.
Produce More Website Content … But Why? SEO?
More website content means more things for people to find in a Google search, but it goes a bit deeper than just that.
Blogging Improves Intelligence and Here is Proof!
Blogging can increase your business intelligence, expand your creativity, provide you with a better perspective on the intelligence around you, and more. Much relies on how you use it, and I am here to help you get smarter, so stop scanning and start reading!
Twitter is Useful but Blogging is Better
This article shows a statistical analysis of how blogging provides more value than any single social media effort alone.
6 Essential Blogging Tools for Non-Bloggers and Bloggers
Even if you are just a casual reader, I want to give you some really useful pieces of information to help you receive more benefit from blogs and to make the information more manageable. These will not take a lot of time to implement, and it will be worth the time you spend.

Blogging Dilemma: Truncated Blog Excerpts or Full Blog Articles?

Excerpts or Full Articles: A Grizzly Question

Blogging and SEO (being found in search engines) go hand in hand. If you have read more than a couple of my articles, you know that I am a strong proponent of blogging. Blogging is a huge asset to anybody wanting to be more visible to the public, and so it should not be taken lightly. If you do not have a blog, be sure to read “10 Really Good Reasons to Blog“.

Blogging comes with a lot of choices, and those choices include whether to truncate your blog posts and show excerpts on the home page, or to include full articles. Let us consider these options.

Truncated Blog Excerpts vs. Full Articles

As you may notice, I have opted to truncate the blog articles on my home page. Until this weekend, my blog has always included full length articles on my home page, archives, tags, and categories, but I decided to try something different. I will tell you a couple of pros and cons to the decision. I will talk a bit geek for some people here, but I will circle back around to something human that everybody can clearly grasp.

How Do You Like Your Blog? (My Blog Too!)

When I looked at the option of using blog excerpts on the home page, I thought of readers first. Perhaps you have had to make this judgment call as well. Sure, I see what other bloggers do, but I seldom do things just because somebody else does it. Well, except for smoking … the cool kids smoked so I fell into that trap. When it comes to writing a blog, I like to believe I can do something original. Please tell me you didn’t already read this somewhere else. There simply is not a solid rule for this, because bloggers have different styles … millions of different styles.

I tried to be deliberate in my decision making. I tried to think of everything, and I crossed my fingers hoping it will not explode in my face on Monday when you see this, or in the future, after my decision kicks in with more readers. I considered website performance issues such as page load times, average article length, length to truncate the excerpts, search engine indexing, and others. I will be happy to share my thoughts on these matters and l how I addressed them if you ask me.

From a reader standpoint, I know that you do not want to wait around for a page to load. Nobody wants to wait … even for me. Crazy thinking, I know. I considered how it may affect existing search engine rankings, because my home page ranks very well for anything I write. I considered a long list of other technology issues, but I mostly considered you, the reader.

How do you want my blog to work? After all, I am writing this for you as much as for me. I do not just write this to be stagnant and without public attention. Without readers and potential clients who actually take action on my blog, I will have a pretty hard time explaining to my wife why our kids are eating so much cake instead of other kid food (my wife is a totally amazing cake decorator, by the way). Cake does not make a great diet in the long run … believe me, I tried. I like eating grilled animals, and she does not make that kind of cakes. I have to buy my animals the hard way, so I need to find readers with action running through their veins and ready to push the marketing go button. That means I have to reach about 30 squillion of you before one reader takes their business to the next level with my services. I cannot do that alone, and I cannot do it with a mediocre blog … and neither can you. So I had to take this pretty seriously.

Blog Excerpt Pros and Cons

Something I knew going into this is that by truncating my blog posts and using short excerpts on the home page instead of full articles, I would be increasing the number of blog posts showing right upfront. This means people can scan through things easier to find what they want to read, and then click on it if it looks interesting to them. A couple of thoughts on this were that it should look interesting, and even quicker than before. I would have to try and set the hook with new readers sooner than ever with just a short excerpt. People don’t like to click around to find what they want to read … they want it right now. The three click rule is written in the laws of Internet statistics (I should add that to my 11 Important Internet Marketing Laws article). We “Web Geeks” know the rule of three clicks, and we know that readers will go *poof* like Cinderella’s carriage at midnight if we ask for a fourth click. I also had to consider that a massive number of people enter through pages other than my home page. I had to know where they enter, and why. I had to analyze their usage and consider the user bounce rate of the home page in relation to other pages, and a whole lot of other great geek almighty blogging factors. I really needed to feel secure about this decision, but I do not want to feel too secure, because it is not my decision as much as it is your decision. If you do not like it, I need to have a quick fist-full of clicks to bring it back to blogging as usual. Even if you do not tell me with comments (which I hope you will), you will still tell me by your usage patterns. Make no mistake … the masses will win this decision, and mine is only one little vote in that decision.

Using excerpts also means more database work to load all the articles, tags, categories, and images. Since I generally try to include just one or two images per post. Using full articles, including one image per post was fine, and I could still load full articles pretty quickly. Increasing the number of posts on my home page means increasing the number of images on the home page, because I wanted each article to be represented with a thumbnail and I would be adding more articles. More images normally means slower pages. At the same time, I had to weigh in the consideration that most of my blog posts are very long. Yes, I have no idea when to shut up most of the time. So maybe I could balance that out, since the text of a typical Murnahan blog post is about long enough to make up for a huge image download.

Another consideration in favor of truncated excerpts in place of full blog articles is reducing possibilities of duplicate content. It is a big problem for a lot of blogs, because the same full article content is on the home page, each individual article, archive pages, tag pages, category pages, and etcetera. I have always done things to help reduce duplicate content issues (search engines don’t like duplicate content) like using a meta “noindex, follow” tag in my archives, blog tags, and category pages. That helps, but I also really wanted to focus on individual articles, so along with implementing excerpts, I reworked my XML sitemap to boost the indexing priority of individual posts and reduce the priority of categories, tags, and archives, which already had “noindex,follow” meta tags in the headers.

Blog Usability Comes First

What I know above all else is that you, the reader is what matters more than anything. I know that if I write information that people can use … the things that they really like, and that other people cannot or did not produce as well as I did … that is what matters. How much does it matter to me, and to blogging in general? It is what makes the big difference in why most SEO fail at link building. Great … no, fantastic website content is what matters more than even the blog structure. If you have great usable content on your side, you can kill grizzly bears with a toothpick and a rubber band.

Grizzly Bear SEO and Pink Ponies for Sale

Just as I was writing this, I was alerted to a very fresh article about grizzly bear SEO writing. The article linked back to a piece that I wrote titled “SEO Directory Submissions and Pink Ponies for Sale“. What?! Yes, this is what makes my SEO world spin, and I do know when people link to my work. It is usefulness and marketing talent that matters more than website structure, alone. Blog structure matters a whole lot for SEO, so do not get me wrong, but the bottom line is usefulness. That means useful in every way, and sometimes that means testing and pushing the envelope.

If you get all the pieces just right, and you give people something useful and interesting, the rest of the SEO factors fall into place divinely. To see what I mean, just brave the wild Internet enough to go and see the grizzly bear article I mentioned, along with my response to the grizzly bear poo and pink ponies offered out there in the SEO marketplace.

Now I ask for your input. What do you think? Do you like the new truncated blog excerpts or full blog articles? Answer me with your comments, or answer me with your actions. Either way, I am paying close attention and I do care. After all, my kids can only eat so much cake!

Produce More Website Content … But Why? SEO?

“You should produce more website content.” This is a pretty common message that many search engine optimizers will tell you. They say that “if you produce more content, you will have more website traffic.” Are they lying to you? No, but there is another piece that is missing. I am going to give you that piece, and it will not cost you a cent. I will give you the good and bad sides of creating more content on your website, along with some encouragement that it is not as difficult at you may imagine, so pay attention.

You want more website traffic. Don’t try to deny it. I want more website traffic, too. Website traffic makes me happy. It makes me feel vindicated for all my hard work. It makes me money … (insert sound byte of screeching tires here). Incorrect! More website traffic actually does not pay me a penny. It actually comes with a cost. Maybe this is why I am telling you the truth. I may just lie to you if I earned a dollar every time you click another page, but I do not. Go ahead and look around to see that I do not have a bunch of cost-per-exposure advertisements or cost-per-action links to “buy now” or “register here” on my blog. I have a couple of my own books listed to the left, but I am not force-feeding that to you. They are not my big money-maker. So, you may ask, “what is the catch, and why do you want to share this with me?” There must be something dirty in this plan, right? No, in fact, I actually do not want to sell you anything at all. I will explain, but first, I want you to understand some facts about producing more website content. I will explain why more website content is important, and also why it is not important.

Benefits Producing More Website Content

If you produce more written content on your website, there will be more things for Google and other search engines to add to their databases. This means that as long as you do everything else just right, you will have a higher chance of being listed when somebody performs a search. Do not underestimate the importance of this fact. Consider why Wikipedia is found so often when you search for something. Wikipedia has a lot of useful website content … things you want to know.

I recently illustrated the huge differences in website traffic based on adding new website content as compared to the reach of social media. I suggest reading “Twitter is Useful but Blogging is Better” and also a piece titled “10 Really good Reasons to Blog“. Your website really is the epicenter of your business efforts online, so you should treat it that way. If you are in business and want more business, you should really be producing more website content … but here comes the hard part.

Producing More Website Content Does Not Matter

Website content is important. It is important enough that more website content, alone, is not what really matters. Your competitors are producing more website content, too. The race is on, and now it will require marketing talent to win. Doing it right is what matters. Giving people information they want and need, becoming a market authority, and being ready with a solution for the reader’s need matters more. Volume of website content will get people there, but having something truly spectacular for them is what makes them a customer.

There is a balance to be found between more website content and great website content. Some content will get traffic and public attention, but people will only look further if it grabs them and pulls them in. The people who visit my blog because they searched for “best hookers” (and they do) are not buying what I sell, but it is a pretty darn popular piece of blogging content. The people who happen upon that piece because I referenced it, like I did here, are why I wrote it. There is also a lot of value in reaching the audience just outside of your focus using “lateral keywords“. This means keywords in a lateral and sometimes unexpected market.

Producing Website Content Gets Easier

Producing website content gets easier with practice, and it can really create a snowball effect. Just consider this: I set out to write a book about Twitter in 2009. I was just out to write one book, but all of the sudden it got easier and I wrote two more within three months. I also blogged enough to wear my fingers smooth.

You do not need a degree in literature to produce successful website content. I can prove this statement. The website content that I have produced over the last decade is viewed by hundreds of thousands of people per month. It has also earned me millions of dollars. I left school at 15 years of age and I am the CEO of a wholesale Internet company. I didn’t have the time or education to write more website content either. I am glad that I did, and it provided inspiration for the book “Living in the Storm“.

You can do this, and it really does make a difference. When you cannot, there are also a lot of website content producers available to hire out the work or to augment your efforts. There is also a search engine optimizer on every corner. These fields grow with each round of layoffs at companies that didn’t produce more website content in time to beat the competition.

When Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the other tools you have tried just aren’t working like you hoped, it is likely that you simply didn’t produce enough quality content that people were looking for. Think about it like planting a tree. If you want shade, the best time to plant it is ten years ago. You cannot go back and plant it earlier, so the next best time is now.

Why I Do Not Want to Sell You Anything

I wrote earlier that I do not want to sell you anything at all. That deserves an explanation, because I really do not mean to seem rude or impersonal. The truth is that I am actually looking at the guy over your shoulder. I want your competitor. I want the one who is out to crush your business because they understand the importance of not only producing more website content, but also producing the content that will smash the competition. That is how I earn a living for my family. So, if you call me on the phone or message me, be sure that you tell me you are out to cause a marketing massacre for that other company who read this blog article (yes, they are reading it, too).