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Perry Marshall, long thought of as THE guru for Adwords (Google pay-per-click) marketing, has an interesting post on his blog titled “Sometimes Google AdWords is the least effective way to reach your target customer.” In it he mentions four situations in which other marketing tactics (email being one) can be more effective than search.

These four non-search marketing situations are:

Situation #1: When you’re a manufacturer selling parts in large lots to other manufacturers.

As an example, when running a campaign for just such a client, Perry found that a Google Adwords campaign produced mostly consumers wanting to buy the part in single or very low quantities. Not surprisingly the campaign didn’t pay off.

Situation #2: When you’re selling high-end equipment, software or services to high level executives and low level people are a waste of time.

I’d like to add an emphasis on the last half of that sentence: and low level people are a waste of time.

Often said low-level people are assigned initial research duty and it pays to be visible to them to get your name on the long list. We advise clients to be sure this isn’t the case with their product or service before completely abandoning the idea of finding value in search marketing.

Situation #3: When you sell a product or service that solves a problem people don’t even realize they have.

This is bsolutely true. If people aren’t looking for you online, you’re going to have to generate awareness and demand for the overall solution first.

Situation #4: When your buyers are beyond the intro phase, know where they want to go online and are spending time on subject-specific websites instead of searching.

I think this is more of keyword issue than anything else. The more specific your keywords, the closer to purchase your buyers will be. At that point maybe they have left search behind and are more easily found on an industry website. This is where the Google content network – handled correctly – can pay off.

A little testing will answer that question for you.

Over the past half-decade of helping clients attract more leads and customers with search marketing, I’ve occasionally spoken to people for whom pay per click or search engine optimization just isn’t the best approach. The most important question to ask and answer is a fairly obvious one: are my prospects searching for my solution online?

If the answer is yes, go with it.

Technorati Tags: search, seo, search engine optimization, ppc, pay per click, email marketing

What’s the most important factor of success in any search marketing effort? The right keywords. Without them, nothing else matters. And yet so many people just want take the first words that come to mind and call it done.

But you’re too smart for that, right?

Steps for discovering potential keywords are much the same regardless of whether you intend to use those keywords for organic listings (SEO) or paid listings (pay per click advertising). But the criteria for choosing the best words is different.

In this post I’m going to talk about choosing the right words for search engine optimization.

To state the obvious, you want keywords that attract the right people in the right numbers. There are five factors that affect this.

1. Relevance.

One of the most rewarding things about search marketing is its ability to put you in touch with people who are actively looking for you. No other marketing tactic does this as well. Keywords tell you exactly what the searcher is looking for. That should be you – or your product or service.

If the keyword isn’t relevant to what you’re offering, your listing might get viewed by a lot of people; but they aren’t going to click on it.

2. Popularity.

No surprise here. You need enough people looking for a particular keyword to make it worth the effort to get a page one ranking. Showing up on the first page of Google for a keyword with no search volume is like placing first in a race with only one contestant – so what.

This point is so obvious you might wonder why I even bring it up. It’s because nearly everyday I talk to people who are so obsessed with top rankings they don’t bother to look at the search volume. As Eric Gerds mentioned in a previous article on this blog, it’s easy to get ranked number one for Limburger cheese socks.

3. Used by your prospects.

One of the easiest mistakes to make when selecting keywords is to choose the words you would use to find your product. Since you are not your target market, that’s no good. Get out of your own head and into the heads of your customers and prospects to find the words they use.

You can find these keywords and phrases in a number of places. Start by asking your sales people, customer service and technical support staff, and anyone else who interacts with your customers. Talk to your customers yourself. Look at your web analytics. They’ll show you what words people have used to find you in the past.

4. Achievable.

Some keywords have so much aggressive competition you could kill yourself trying to get ranked for them. Don’t bother. Instead, add some qualifiers to the phrase and work on ranking for that. Search volume might be less but would you rather be in the top three listings for a phrase with 5000 searches or a higher than 200 listing for a phrase with 50,000 searches?

Here’s an example. “Credit card payments” might be tough. “Credit card payments online” is more achievable. (And potentially more relevant).

5. Profitability.

Ultimately, whatever keywords you choose must be those that drive traffic with the potential, desire and means to buy your product. This is another place your web analytics might be able to help you. Can you track traffic from specific keywords directly to a purchase?

You can also use pay-per-click advertising to find out if certain keywords have good potential. Run a quick Google campaign to see if those keyword phrases drive visitors who turn into qualified leads or buyers.

It takes some effort to find the right keywords, and it’s worth it.

Technorati Tags: keywords, seo, search engine optimization

Curious about how other business-to-business marketers are investing marketing dollars in 2009? Here is some info that will interest you. This comes from a study, “B-to-B Marketing in 2009: Trends in Strategies and Spending,” conducted at the end of 2008 by MarketingProfs and Forrester Research. The study surveyed 656 marketing management pros in a variety of business-to-business companies.

Competition hangs tough.

With a bad economy weighing heavily on everyone, b-to-b marketers seemed willing to tough it out. 25% planned to increase their budgets in 2009 and 41% said their budgets would stay the same. You could think of it this way: 66% of your competitors aren’t going anywhere. 

B-to-B looks online.

Almost one half of the marketers surveyed (47%) planned to increase spending on company websites and search marketing. This is a very good move and one that we recommend to our clients constantly – first get your website in shape and then get visible to the search engines. Interestingly, only 13% of these marketers said they thought company websites were an effective marketing tactic. I must assume this is because most b-to-b websites seriously underperform. (Read about the 7 critical components of a high performance website).

Beyond the website and search marketing, 42% of b-to-b marketers said they planned to increase spending on online videos, podcasts or rich media; 41% planned to spend more on webinars; 39% were going to spend more on email. And 36% were preparing to increase spending on discussion forums, social networks and communities.

Offline loses.

Not surprisingly, the tactics that most b-to-b marketers planned to cut were in the offline world – what we think of as “conventional” marketing. This is a trend that has been going on for a while. The percentage of marketers planning to make cuts in this area looked like this: print advertising (55%), TV advertising (51%), radio (48%), trade shows and conferences (43%) and sponsorships (40%). 

Some tactics were projected to maintain the same level of funding: blogs (58%) inside sales/telemarketing (54%) and public relations (53%).

What should you do?

I’ve given my 3 steps for accelerating marketing effectiveness in previous articles on this blog, and they’re worth repeating again. We know they work because we implement them for clients day in and day out with substantial and cost-effective results.

1. Fix your website. I have two things to say about this: 1) your website is a critical part of your marketing program – it’s either helping you or hurting you, and 2) unfortunately, chances are high it’s hurting you. 
   
   
2.  Get visible on the search engines. Prospects are actively looking for you. They’re going to find your competitors. Shouldn’t they find you too? As more and more of your competitors pour online, this may become more challenging but no less important.  
    
3. Nurture the leads that aren’t ready to buy yet. Nearly every company I talk with has a collection of forgotten prospects – those website visitors or inquiries that weren’t ready to talk to a sales person. Many will buy sooner or later. You already know who they are; now do your best to make sure they buy from you. While others spend money generating new traffic, you’ll be ahead of the game.

The steps I’ve outlined here are not only effective, they’re also measurable – meaning you can tell exactly what you’re getting for your money. If you want some help getting started or getting to the next level, check out the website development, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization and lead nurturing programs from Tatum Marketing. Or just give me a call.

Technorati Tags: b-to-b, business-to-business, online marketing, websites, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, lead nurturing, lead development

This is the third in a series of articles on building your own word-of-mouth link campaign. To start at the beginning read Looking Differently at Links.

Social Networks & Blogs

Social networks – such as Live Journal, My Space, Facebook and many others – is a complex topic and each one offers a great number of possibilities to promote your company.  The basic idea comes down to the fact that a lot of people come to these sites and hang out there regularly. Social networks and blogs are a great way to find a target market group, but remember – just like groups and forums – you need to contribute to the group, not just market to them. 

Social networks are considered separate from websites on the internet, especially in searches. How often do you see Facebook content come up on a Google search results page?  Additionally social network have their own internal search systems that provide results from within their own pages. This means that when someone is on Facebook and does a Facebook search they are only going to find information available on Facebook. An internal search won’t find a regular webpage. This is why many companies have MySpace pages to supplement their regular website.

There is much controversy about the value of social networks for companies – especially those providing business-to-business products and services. It’s true that placing a company on the social networks is not for every business out there, but it is something to consider – especially for specialty companies selling to the general public.

Online Magazines and Articles

There are an amazing number of online magazines and other outlets where you can post news and articles. Writing an article to be published and referenced by others is a tremendous source of buzz and can drive a great number of people to your website. 

Keep in mind that it takes more than just a single article to generate traffic through this method. It requires a steady output to see results.  And, your articles need to be more than just press releases for your company. Articles need to contain the sort of information people will use and want to share with others. 

The advantage of this system is that you only need to focus writing the articles. The distribution is done by other people. The challange is that you have to be (or hire) a skilled writer with something to say, and you have to find someone interested in publishing your articles.

E-mail 

I want to make it clear that I am not talking about spam. E-mail is a wonderful and very powerful promotional tool, but it can be easily abused. There are many good ways to use email without getting a bad name.

The most basic type of e-mail promotion is a simple electronic newsletter system, where people sign up for information and can cancel their subscription themselves whenever they wish. This tactic is used extensively by everyone from large well-known retailers, such as Borders and Sephora who send out graphically heavy html messages containing discounts and specials, to local quilt shops letting their customers know about upcoming classes with simple text messages. This is a very low manpower system that can generate an amazing amount of traffic and sales on your website. 

Even every day email can be used to generate links. I am shocked that anyone forgets one of the simplest things possible with e-mail: place a link to your website within the signature portion of your e-mails. The e-mail signature can contain everything from the sender’s name to business hours to the company legal statement. Think of the total number of e-mails that your company generates. Each one has the potential of being a small advertisement for your company. 

Are the sites and ideas I’ve mentioned over the last few articles the only places to pursue a word-of-mouth web campaign?  Of course not, but it is enough information to get started and to help you think about different ways of publicizing your business and your website on the internet. Time spent reaching out every day will snowball you into real success.

Technorati Tags: email, link building, word-of-mouth, seo

I’ve been talking about building a word-of-mouth link program and in this article I’ll take a closer look at places your potential buyers might hang out and what to do when  you find them.

Message Boards

Message boards are really old school; they predate blogs and other social networks. They began in the 1980s back in the beginnings of the internet, and they are still around and used by people to share information and socialize. Think of them as group blogs where one person makes a comment and others then respond to those comments. 

When you find a message board that attracts your target audience, start by creating an account with a link to your website. If the board lets members create custom signatures – a little text and maybe a graphic at the bottom of each message – go for it. That can be a plug for your website.

Once you are a member you need to participate. Read over the messages and comment on the topics being discussed.  If you have new information or questions of your own create your own posts. As people read your information they will discover you and your website. Warning: do not spam the board with advertising. At best it will be ignored. At worst it can create a negative impression of your business, as well as get you banned from the board. 

Yahoo & Google Groups

Like message boards, both Yahoo and Google have their own groups covering a wide range of topics. Find the topics which best suite your company and, just like on the message boards, go ahead and join in. 

Both Yahoo and Google limit the number of groups that you can join in one day, so it might take a week or more before you join all the groups you’ve picked out. Before joining any group make sure it is active. If no one has posted comments for over a month, then the group may not be worth your time. 

Yahoo Groups also has a place to post a permanent link in each group you belong to, once you are a member of the group. Like the message boards slowly comment and post information within these groups to build up a following and lead people to your site. 

Web directories

These are websites which are nothing more than a giant list of links with descriptions but they have the websites organized by subject matter. You should be able to request a spot in the directories without any problems. However, if the directory is not professionally run, the updating process may take a long time – so be patient.

Now do be careful because some web directories are nothing more than a scam. There are a great number of possible scams involving web directories and the most common one is insisting that you pay to have your link posted. Do not pay, no matter how low cost as you will not get a return on that investment and it could be a phishing expedition for your ID. 

There is an exception to this rule. It can be worth paying for a listing on a web directory that’s run by a membership organization such as the Better Business Bureau. With membership organizations there are benefits beyond the web listing that make them worthwhile. 

In the next article, I’ll look at social networks and blogs, online magazines, and email.

Technorati Tags: seo, word of mouth, link building

Sometimes it helps to look beyond our own industries to discover what marketing tactics others are using successfully. According to an OMMA research brief, a recently published Forrester report, called Retailing Online 2009: Marketing Report, provides a good opportunity to do that. 

Amidst all of the data included in the report, two things have real significance for non-retail marketers.  Online retailers are using: 

1. Search engine marketing (SEM) for customer acquisition and 
2. Email for customer retention.

If you’re interested in the numbers, SEM is the marketing tactic most often mentioned as an effective acquisition tactic (83%). Search engine optimization is the second most frequently mentioned tactic (51%). And affiliate programs come in third (41%). Email is the most frequently mentioned successful overall marketing tactic (89%).

This is not terribly different from what we find successful in the non-retail world. While search engine marketing alone is rarely – if ever – the only tactic needed to acquire a new customer, it is by far the most effective and efficient way to start the process. Unless of course no one is looking for your product or solution, which is a different challenge altogether.

Business-to-business company owners and marketers often come to us torn between conventional lead generation programs – direct mail, email, or telemarketing – and online search or advertising programs. Our advice is nearly always the same: 

Start with search.

The reason is really simple. When people are actively searching for a product or solution like yours, you are relevant. You do not have to fight a bunch of noise for their attention. They are looking for you. Your only competition is the other marketers taking advantage of the search situation.

There is also a simple reason online retailers don’t find email marketing to be among the most effective customer acquisition tactics. When email is used for initial engagement, it faces a big list of obstacles. At the top of that list are delivery issues and competition from everything else in the prospects inbox. In the business-to-business world, this can literally be hundreds of other email messages. 

This is not to say that email isn’t useful. In fact, it often plays a major role in successful non-retail marketing campaigns. Not only can we use it for customer retention – as the online retailers do – we also need it for lead development. 

In the non-retail world, most purchases are multi-stage. You are not, for example, going to be able to use a search marketing campaign alone to sell an expensive software application or consulting relationship. We know that a high percentage of prospects (75% to 80% or more) are not going to be ready to buy when they first make contact with your company. Email is a great way to build and maintain an on-going relationship and turns those semi-interested visitors into real leads.

 So, you need both – search marketing and email – for an effective new customer marketing program. You also need a great website and consistent conversion optimization, but those are subjects for a different article.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, conversion, customer acquisition, lead generation

In my last article I talked about inbound links and how, rather than just putting links onto random websites, it would be better to create what I call a word-of-mouth link campaign. In a word-of-mouth link campaign, instead of just going for a large volume of links, the focus is on creating links that will drive real people to your site.

Let’s skip over Pay-Per-click campaigns and other forms of paid advertising and just talk about soliciting free links.  Links from unpaid independent people and web pages are worth more those you buy, and these can be generated by getting people interested in talking about your business and your site. 

In other words, you want to get a ‘buzz’ going about your website. And you want to get that buzz going in the right places. Just as a major studio that’s marketing an action movie isn’t going to advertise in a gardening magazine, you want to avoid wasting time on places that don’t attract your prospects.

So, the first step when starting a word-of-mouth link campaign is researching where your potential customers and clients hang out. These are websites, blogs, message boards and other locations where your potential customers go to look for information related to your subject.  

Start by looking at your bookmarked web pages and talking to co-workers and friends to find out where the latest and greatest information related to your site is located. Because this is your company and your own area of expertise it shouldn’t take too long to come up with an impressive list of different type of sites and groups. 

You can start your link building as soon as you find one one good spot. You don’t need to create a five page plan with every location detailed before you start.

Over the next few articles, I’m going to talk about the different types of locations where your target audience might be, and what to do with these locations once you find them. Briefly, here’s what I’ll cover:

• Message boards 
• Yahoo & Google Groups 
• Web directories 
• Social Networks & Blogs 
• Online Magazines and Articles 
• E-mail 

You are going to be sending a lot of emails out for this process, and you might want to create a new e-mail account just for your word-of-mouth link buildling efforts. Unfortunately, going through this process can generate a large amount spam in your inbox.  

Next week I’ll take a closer look at message boards.

Meanwhile, if this seems like a lot of work to you, you’re right! An effective link-building campaign is very time consuming but it’s critical both for generating direct traffic and for getting high rankings on the search engines. If you’d like some help, Tatum Marketing is a great place to turn. Check out our Search Engine Optimization programs.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, inbound links, link building campaign, traffic generation

We’ve all followed links from one website to another, but did you know these links are an important part of search engine rankings?

Over the past couple of years, links – especially inbound links pointing toward your website from other sites, have come to be a sign of relevance and authority.  The more people who point others to your website the higher value that Google places on your pages and the higher your site will score on a search results page.

Some people take this knowledge and start putting up links everywhere they can, thinking that any link is a good link. Some less reputable SEO consultants create websites with no content except a massive list of links, so the page resembles a spreadsheet.  This is how some consultants can honestly claim that they will place a website link on hundreds of pages. They are just tossing pages and links around the internet with no rhyme or reason.  So yes they will do what they say, but it won’t get the benefits you expect from your investment.

Google and other search engines really do pay attention to the sources of your inbound links. It looks at the linking pages to see if those cover similar information.  Links coming in from websites within the same framework are weighted more heavily than websites that have nothing in common with your site.

For example, if you sell shoes it will do you more good to have a link coming in from “Shoe fans” than from “Hat fans”.  This is not to say that you should tell “Hat fans” that you don’t want their link.  If it’s a link from a legitimate page it’s still good.  The only links you don’t want are the ones from places that will charge you to sit on their database.

So since links are important what should you do to get good links — and get a better ranking at Google?

What I suggest may sound a bit radical and not in line with what other SEO consultants have written about. but I say forget about Google! I say that when you are looking to build up your inbound links start by thinking about how to connect with your customers instead.

Question: “What is the most powerful form of advertising?”

Answer: “Word of mouth!”

Think of links as the ‘word of mouth’ of the web.  Every time someone links to your website, it’s the same as praising you to a friend.   In a way, a page link can be just as good as or even better than a word of mouth comment since a link can stick around for years.

The key to creating a successful linking strategy in this word-of-mouth method is to focus on getting as many links in front of real customers as possible. This is the whole point behind a successful pay-per-click campaign. With pay-per-click it’s easier – and faster – to get your links in the right place, but the downside is that those link ads only last as long as you are willing to spend the money.  Pay-per-click links can be very effective in a short term but word-of-mouth links last for years.

Taking the time to find people, groups and companies who will link to your site (and use your services) is a long term solution for your business.  Most people want to think of SEO as a problem to be solved once, rather than what it is: a process that needs to be done on a regular basis.

Think about this, what would you prefer? Driving more real people to your website or having a hundred links which may or may not raise your Google ranking?  The normal response to this question is both, but given a choice most people would always prefer customers.

How to build this word of mouth campaign?  That answer will be in the next article.

Technorati Tags: seo, ppc, pay per click, link building, strategies, word of mouth

I’ve spent six articles talking about keywords for websites; however the question needs to be asked: are keywords the only factor that impacts the ranking of a website?

The answer is no.  Keywords are the foundation for getting a higher ranking on search engine results pages, but they are not the only factor considered.  Without good keywords used properly it becomes harder and harder to achieve good ranking.

What else goes into getting a good ranking?  There are a number of factors to consider, and I’ll go over each in detail in later articles, but let’s start with the basics.

Design factors for increasing ranking.

Search engines pay attention to where a keyword is located on the web pages and whether or not it is emphasized. Words included in titles and headlines or subheads, and words that are in bold or italicized text are seen by both humans and search engines as being more important than non-emphasized words in the body copy. It makes sense that search engines give text that has been treated this way a few extra points towards higher ranking.

You might be tempted to start bolding every other word, but you need to make sure that these enhancements to the text are properly integrated with the overall design and theme of the website.  It is far more important for human visitors to be able to read and use your website than it is for search engines to be able read it.  If text is difficult or challenging to read and use, your visitors will just hit the back button and possibly never come back.

The powers of links:

Links – both internal and external – are another important factor in assessing ranking.  Internal links should always be in plain English (another good place to use keywords) and should be designed so that search engines can follow them.  The types of links that search engines hate are computer gibberish such as “www.mysite.com/00023994/objcet=2&type32”.  It is much better to use one that looks like this: “www.mysite.com/business/software/”.

Fancy Java script or Flash menus, while attractive to humans, can be a problem for search engines.  They are generally unable to follow these links because the links require a mouse click to activate them; thus they don’t show up for search engine spiders.  If you choose to have Java or Flash menus on your site, plan on including text links to duplicate the links elsewhere on the page.  Simple text links are also a good backup for customers experiencing connection problems as they don’t have to wait for the website to fully load in order to get to the page they want.

External links have a huge impact on a website’s ranking.  The sheer number of outside websites linking to your site is important, but do not assume that one link is just as good as any other. Some links will have more of an impact on search engine rankings.

Links coming from ‘trusted authorities’ will increase your website’s ranking more than many other actives.  What is a trusted authority?  That is a lengthy topic, but basically it comes down to websites containing similar subject matter as your site.  A link from a humor site, for example, will help increase your ranking more if you have a humor site than if you have a banking site.

Is your site up to date?

Another ranking factor is the age of the site and its contents.  Paradoxically, the longer your website has been around the better your ranking, but the longer it’s been since you’ve updated the site, the lower the ranking. This is another good reason to plan on updating your site on a regular basis.

You don’t have to totally redesign your whole site. Just keep the content fresh and up-to-date. You can do this by always including breaking news and the latest product or company information.  Make sure that any outdated content is removed.  Outdated content is like missing a button on your suit jacket. It may not seem important, but people notice when you’re not looking your best.

Are visitors returning to the site?

Another seldom-mentioned but important factor towards ranking is the site’s popularity.  More people coming to a site will help increase its ranking.  Yes, this does sound like a catch-22, because most companies invest in SEO to get a higher ranking so that more people will see their site on Google and come for a visit.

Older sites often have an advantage because they have built up repeat visitors over time, and these repeat visitors count as traffic. In order to build your traffic numbers, become a site that people come back to again and again.  You want to be a bookmark that they click on regularly.

Depending on your business and your audience, there are many things that can be added to your website to increase repeat visitors.  For example: user manuals, training guides, resources and blogs generally help keep people coming back.  Don’t be afraid to go the extra mile and put more information and more tools on your site. Think about turning your website into a useful tool instead of just a brochure or storefront for the company.

Is that all that needs to be done?

The items above represent some of the major factors that impact search engine rankings. Search engines use complicated 200+ factor algorithms to determine rank, and there are many other small things you can do to slightly increase ranking. However, using good keywords as a foundation and following the steps above will build the frame to successful website structure.  Without these major steps the smaller steps will have almost no impact at all.

Building a successful website is just as complicated and rewarding as building the rest of your business, and with a large number of people turning to the internet as their first choice to find any business, your presence on the web requires as much investment in your time and budget as your storefront or office.  Your website is often the first thing potential customers see of your business, so spend the time to make a great first impression.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engines, ranking, keywords, algorithms, websites, visitors, traffic

In the past few articles, I’ve spent a good amount of time discussing how to choose keywords for websites.  The next logical question concerns what is to do with these keywords.

Most people focus all their energy putting the keywords within the body of the website. This is good. The body of a website is the area that human visitors see and it is indeed the place where the majority of the keywords should be used.  No matter how important search engines and keywords are, a webpage must first of all be informative and easy for humans to read.

However there are other locations on the webpage where keywords should be used.

1. Page Title

The first place for the extra keywords is in the title of each webpage.  That is the text in the bar across the top of each webpage. You should not cram every keyword for your page into this small area but use keywords that correspond to the content of that page.

For the best effect, each page should have its own unique title. Search engines will not count repeating titles in a positive fashion and by having different keywords in each page title you also increase the variety of keywords used over the entire website.

The title will likely appear on search engines results pages; and if it is a crowded line of meaningless words, people will probably ignore them.

2. Alt Tags

Beyond bodies and titles the next best location for placing keywords is the often ignored  ALT tag. An ALT tag is a little box of text that pops up when a visitor moves the cursor over a picture or other image. Often it contains a description of the picture.  That simple little box description can be also used for a keyword or phrase.  Keep it short and sweet, as long tags are often ignored by humans.

3. Intra-Site Links

One of the least thought of places for keywords intra-site links within body text.  Rather than a simple using a text link that says: “Click Here” or “Lean More,” try using a link that says “Download Purchasing Software Trial Version” or “Corporate Governance Product Preview”.  These can give a website additional keyword placements plus it provides more information to the viewer of the site.

4. Meta Tags

The final major area to place your keywords is in the Meta Tags.  While Meta Tags have fallen out of favor because Google no longer uses the information from this area as part of it search, I do not agree with people who say that any Meta Tag information hurts your Google ranking. And, because Yahoo, Ask and other search engines still use the Meta tag information for their searches Meta Tags are important to use.

Add Meta tags for title, description and keywords to your pages. As always, make the keywords relative to the content on the page. Do not stuff keywords. And you’ll be okay.

If you’re going to spend the time and energy to carefully pick your keywords, you should take the same kind of time and energy in placing those keywords on your website.  Then they will work to increase the visibility of a web page in search engine results.

Technorati Tags: keywords, seo, search engines, meta, tags, titles, descriptions, alt tags