Monthly Archives: February 2012

On-Page SEO: Meta Tags

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It has been established in SEO that meta tags do not benefit a website in terms of search engine ranking. This is because search engines have long removed meta tags as a part of their ranking factor (at least the vast majority of the search engines have).

So why bother with meta tags, you ask? Even without ranking incentives, these HTML header settings can help make a website look better in search engine result pages (SERP). This seemingly aesthetic purpose can actually make your website look more professional and organized, hence more clickable.

Meta data

For the purpose of website optimization, we should only be concerned in tweaking two meta data:

  • meta description
  • meta keywords

Let’s just say that the other meta attributes are not worth looking into. Besides they’re probably taken care of by your content management software (ie. WordPress).

Meta description

The description attribute provides search engines a proper description for a web page. If this tag is empty, the first paragraph from a static text or the latest blog entry (since the page was last crawled) is usually displayed on the SERP.

Instead of letting the search engines pull a random sentence from you web page, why not create one for them to use?

In the example below, a truncated paragraph is displayed in the result after making a search for seowebsite.com.

For somebody looking for SEO tips and related information, this sentence may not be so convincing to warrant a click.

In the next example, however, a user can have a slight idea of what the website indieescape.com is all about, just by looking at the short data displayed.

To create a meta description. add the following code within the <header> tag:

<meta name="description" content="Write your description here" />

Meta keywords

Meta keywords provide search engines some idea of what your site is about. This used to be a free-for-all keyword stuffing technique, before search engines decided to drop it from their ranking factors.

Today, the keywords attribute may still hold some importance in SEO. It helps search engines pick out a website to display in the results, but not put a website on top of the list. Keyword stuffing in this level may also be considered spam. In the end, just putting the right amount of relevant keywords would do.

To create meta keywords. add the following code within the <header> tag:

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword 1, keyword 2, and so on" />

If it’s too much trouble to create this attribute, then it probably is, because quality content speaks well in itself for a website to get picked and ranked by search engines.

Adding meta data on a website may not be of much importance, but it can still help in your overall SEO efforts.

Expired Domains: What To Look For, SEO-wise

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Sometimes, buying an expired domain is preferred because it carries some attributes that cannot be earned up front when registering a web address for the first time. SEO experts look after these characteristics to see if a domain is good enough to buy for future re-selling or personal usage.

When a domain name you’re after has been previously registered, you’ll need to do a background check before buying it. Most expired domains are auctioned off, so knowing these things will help you determine which ones are worth your money. At the same time, you can also find out if a domain is hiding any skeletons in its closet.

Domain age

No matter what others may say, it is obvious that search engines consider domain age as one of their ranking factors. Simply put, domain age is one way of measuring authority and trustworthiness (spam sites generally don’t last long).

Take this example, a query for the keyword “corporate giveaways”. The top spot belongs to a website which has been around since 1999 – the oldest among the others on page 1. On the second spot is a website from circa 2006, while the third spot is a 10-year old website.domain age as ranking factor SERP

Looking at these results, it is obvious that domain age does have some control over search engine rankings. From what we can see, it looks like the second website was given priority because the keyword is in the domain name itself. Overall, the trend shows that older websites have a place in the first page of SERPs.

Previous penalties

A website involved in spam activity or other indecency is not tolerated by search engines. These websites are penalized. Suffice to say that a penalized website will not be able to perform SEO-wise for many months.

Right now, there is no standard way to check whether a website has been penalized. You’ll have to rely on the transparency of the previous owner. In any case, if you think you bought a penalized website, you can simply send a reconsideration request or re-inclusion request to the search engine. Google provides an online form for this purpose (log-in required).

Established backlinks

A previously active website must have a portfolio of past promotions done by its webmaster. Established backlinks remain active even after a complete management turnover. Those wanting to buy an expired domain for SEO purposes look for a website with a good number of established backlinks to benefit from its leftover link juice.

Some type of backlink analysis should be done just to see what kind of promotion has been done in the past on a domain. Was it linking to quality websites, or is it involved in sketchy link exchange programs? You also want to look for relevant backlinks, so it can still benefit the new website.

Others

There is no telling how much people are willing to pay for an expired domain. It really depends on how much they are bent on having it. Sometimes you may have to weigh branding with cost because some domains sell for over $200.

Buying expired domains can be a lot of work than you initially thought, but the job can be easier if you know what you are looking for (and how much your budget is).

 

How To Choose A Domain Name For SEO

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Choosing a permanent web address is just like buying a new home in the cyber world. It requires some consideration, especially if you have SEO in mind. Besides branding and long-term commitment (a domain name must be registered for at least 1 year), a domain name can also make or break a website’s search engine ranking.

What’s in a name?

A good URL should be simple and straightforward so users can easily remember it. Take Yahoo! and Google, as examples. The company name is the first priority, but a word or words that can easily be identified with the business is also commonly used.

Try to think what words your users would most likely enter into the search engines when looking for your website. Such words are referred to in the SEO world as “keywords”. Having your target keyword on the URL makes it easier for search engines to identify your website as an expert on the field. These keywords would also most likely end up in the anchor text that other people will create, when linking to your site. So, why else did we name this site “seo website“?

Quality check

Just because your keyword is “death defying stunts of the 21st century”, it doesn’t mean that you have to dot-com the whole phrase. Long phrases are generally harder to memorize, and search engines also do not know how to separate each word in a URL.

Case in point, domainsextension.com can be interpreted as “domains extension”, or “do main sex tension”. So, try to stay away from domains like these because search engines tend to block websites that have the slightest hint of indecency.

If you won’t change your mind about the choice of words, better use hyphens (domains-extension.com) because these are seen as blank spaces by search engines. Copyrighted words must also be avoided because these may result to copyright issues later on.

Picking a TLD

Any SEO expert will tell you that a .com is the best top-level domain (TLD) to get. This is because .com is widely used and easy to remember. It is also the most appropriate for commercial business entities.

You may encounter others who would say that search engines put more importance to .com sites over others, like the .info. Although there is no real proof to this, it is a fact that .info domains are cheaper, and so these are more likely to be used by spam creators. We know that search engines do not like spam, so it could possibly be one of the reasons why .info seems to rank low in SERPs.

The domain name is only one of the many factors that search engines consider when ranking search results. Beneath its face value, there are still a few more things to learn about domain names and SEO. In the meantime, start creating quality content. After all, content still holds the top spot in ranking a website.