"I recently launched a website promoting a new magazine for parents
distributed through public schools. I've tried META keywords and description
tags using your advice, but the words I chose don't seem to differentiate
me. What am I doing or where am I thinking wrong?" -- Doug Damerst, Wisdom
Press LLC
The META description tag can help in ranking, but these days the META
keyword tag isn't used for ranking by any major search engine. I'd still
construct your webpages using META keyword tags, however, especially if
you are doing paid inclusion through Inktomi. Who knows? In a year or
two search engines could start using it again.
Search engines are now looking for webpages with good content. Make sure
your important keywords appear in the Title tag, Headings (H2, H3, etc.),
hyperlinked words, and your body text, especially in the first sentence
or paragraph. Link popularity (the number of in-coming links to your site)
makes a lot of difference, too, especially with Google. The best learning
tool I've found for search engine optimization (SEO) is WebPosition
Gold software (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/webposition.htm). Its tutorial
approach, especially in the up-to-date Page Critic tool, can promote you
from a novice to an expert if you are diligent to read the help files
and follow their recommendations.
