Keywords and Google Webmaster Tools

[discxpress]

Hello,

 

When I look at the keywords Google lists in Webmaster Tools after crawling my site, I see about 200. Some look generic and some look useful. How can I use these keywords for optimization purposes? Can I put them all in the keyword meta tag or place them elsewhere?

 

Is Google giving a hint on what keywords I should be using? I need to know what would you do or what you have done with your keywords Google finds.

 

Thanks for weighing in on this.

[Jack_mcs]

You can use that as a guide but you have to examine the keywords to see if they really apply to your site. You can't successfully have 200 keywords for the home page so only the ones that you want to target should be used. Once obtained, you need to enter them into whatever meta tag addon you are using, assumig you have one installed and it allows that. You also have to change the text on the page to use those keywords. There's much more to it, of course, but that is the basics of getting started.

[discxpress]

You're right there's more to it. I did examine the keywords and most of them appear on my site more than once. I use Header Tags SEO, the latest version. It says at the top 'Below are the most common keywords Google found when crawling your site.' About 75 applied to my site's theme but I was afraid to put them all in keywords tag. I don't want google to think I was trying to spam.

 

You also have to change the text on the page to use those keywords.

 

When you say that, do you mean that I should write some content that use those keywords? That would be difficult to accomplish being that I own a music site. It could be done. I guess I could do some of it by using the Generic override in Header Tags SEO. Once I understand it.

 

Jack if you had a blog I would read it religiously. If you do I want to subscribe.

 

Thanks.

[Jack_mcs]

You're right there's more to it. I did examine the keywords and most of them appear on my site more than once. I use Header Tags SEO, the latest version. It says at the top 'Below are the most common keywords Google found when crawling your site.' About 75 applied to my site's theme but I was afraid to put them all in keywords tag. I don't want google to think I was trying to spam.

Keywords apply to a page, not a site, so you have to work on each page to setup a few keywords you want to go after for each page. Google mostly ignores the keywords so that is not a problem but other search engines use them and 75 on one page is just asking for trouble.

 

When you say that, do you mean that I should write some content that use those keywords? That would be difficult to accomplish being that I own a music site. It could be done. I guess I could do some of it by using the Generic override in Header Tags SEO. Once I understand it.

Yes, without text on the page for a keyword, that keyword is basically useless to google. If text can't be written that uses a keyword for a page, then, odds are, that keyword shouldn't be listed for that page.

 

Jack if you had a blog I would read it religiously. If you do I want to subscribe.

Thanks, I appreciate the thought. I've considered it and it is a possibility at some point but it takes more time than I have to spare at this point.

[discxpress]

I thought about the amount of keywords. I broke the list down to about 20 for the index page and about 10 for the product pages. Now while I think as I write this post, I can use the Generic Override in Header Tags SEO to place some important keywords in the description. I think I'm beginning to understand the purpose of the overrides.

 

Jack, with work at night I don't have time to spend studying your work. Once I get an understanding it makes sense. So I can imagine how tedious it must be for you at times. I love the quality of your products and I try to incorporate as many as possible.

 

Are there any articles contributions you have knowledge of that would be ideal to write content to place keywords on the index and product pages. Keywords, content and relevant linking are my 3 main focuses at this moment. It's difficult to balance user friendly and searchbot friendly content.

 

Thanks.

[Jack_mcs]

Are there any articles contributions you have knowledge of that would be ideal to write content to place keywords on the index and product pages. Keywords, content and relevant linking are my 3 main focuses at this moment. It's difficult to balance user friendly and searchbot friendly content.

I'm not sure I understand your question but if you are asking how to edit the text on those pages, there are a number of contributions for doing that but most people, I think, just download the file and edit on their computer.

[discxpress]

I'm not sure I understand your question but if you are asking how to edit the text on those pages, there are a number of contributions for doing that but most people, I think, just download the file and edit on their computer.

 

I think what I meant to say was I read that there is some Articles Manager contribution. Would that contribution help with keyword placement on web pages? I have in the past used files in the languages/english directory to change the text.

[Jack_mcs]

The Articles Manager addon allows you to create new pages for the site. That is a good idea and specific keywords can be targeted using it but it doesn't change text on existing pages.

[discxpress]

The Articles Manager addon allows you to create new pages for the site. That is a good idea and specific keywords can be targeted using it but it doesn't change text on existing pages.

 

Thanks for that. I wasn't quite sure the purpose of Articles Manager. I will look into it. As for now, I'm doing research on siloing found in your Header Tags contrib.

 

Thanks.

[discxpress]

Jack,

 

I looked at the support thread for Articles Manager. From the looks of it, they've made the contribution your baby so to speak. So when can we expect Articles Manager SEO? Just kidding.

 

I will download your latest version and determine how I can use it for my purposes. I'm guessing I can use it to focus customers' attention to certain products and make site announcements such as promotions, new releases and updates. Due to time constraints that's all I can spare time to do at the moment. I would like to get some freelancers or critics to volunteer to write reviews/articles on their favorite items without the ability to leave outside links. That would take an approval process. I know that's too much to wish for. I have ideas but I'm no good at writing code without some instruction.

 

Thanks for all your comments.

[Jack_mcs]

It's not very well supported at the moment. I added a special version that will work with Header Tags SEO, fixed some problems with the basic code and added some features. I plan to do more but don't currently have the time.

 

You can use it as you describe. I've never seen it used to make announcements but that sounds like a good idea.

[discxpress]

It's not very well supported at the moment. I added a special version that will work with Header Tags SEO, fixed some problems with the basic code and added some features. I plan to do more but don't currently have the time.

 

You can use it as you describe. I've never seen it used to make announcements but that sounds like a good idea.

 

You're the last hope for that contribution. I see its under your radar because you respond to posts in the thread. Now that I think about it, I can add social bookmarks to articles using HT SEO, right? I read a post where you told someone that you must add articles.php to the list and add the HT SEO code to the top. Writing articles and allowing visitors to contribute, will trigger engagement. I hope.

 

Thanks.

[Jack_mcs]

You can add the social bookmark code to the articles pages but they are not displayed automatically by either contribution.

[discxpress]

You can add the social bookmark code to the articles pages but they are not displayed automatically by either contribution.

 

Thanks.

[discxpress]

Jack,

 

What are your thoughts about three sites of relevant content sharing links with each other and then adding link partners of relevant content and they all add links to those additional sites?

 

For example, Site A links to Site B then Site B link to Site C and then Site C back to A and B.

 

Site A -> B and C

Site B -> A and C

Site C -> A and B

 

Then each of those sites pass the links of the other two to other link partners they obtain by inviting them into the 'network'. My example of this would be, If I link to you and I obtain another link partner, I would share my link and pass a link to your site along with it. If the site's content relevant to yours.

 

Would that help build strong backlinking?

How would that affect PR and would Google allow it? Google may think it's some kind of linking scheme.

 

I know some siteowners with PR3 or better may worry about sites with lower PR lowering their PR.

 

I know you may not have much time to answer all of this.

 

Thanks.

[Jack_mcs]

Those are regualr link exchanges and google doesn't have a problem with them as long as they make sense (relevant links added in a natural time period).

[discxpress]

Those are regualr link exchanges and google doesn't have a problem with them as long as they make sense (relevant links added in a natural time period).

Yeah, that's true. But in most conventional link exchanges everyone with similar themes doesn't connect to everyone on the list. Which I believe causes some weak linkage in that group. I know it's not new but it may be not applied as it should.

 

Sorry for getting off topic with link exchanges. I checked Webmaster Tools today and I'm proud to say that Google has indexed over 100 pages in the last day and a half. However when I use the 'site:' operator, I see more than 100 less than the previous day. Since I changed the way my sitemap parses links (from search engine friendly to dynamic or with the '?' in the link), it's been doing some sort of flushing out process. Out with the old, In with the new. I read in one of Google's blogs that Googlebot crawl sites with all types of links and index them with no problem. Of course if they have no problems crawling the site for other reasons.