Recently, I received an email with the following question about whether keywords mattered.  With her permission, I am posting A’ra’s question about the Value of Keywords, along with my response.  Hope it helps you, as well.  Here’s A’ra’s question:

“Are keywords still useful? What is the latest on website optimization. Talked with someone lately who told me that using keywords was so overdone that google doesn’t look for them any more. I know you’re always up on these things, so I was wondering what’s new with the latest and greatest in website land.”- A’ra Lippitt Blair

Here is my response about whether Google thinks keywords are relevant.

Hi A’ra:

Your friend was almost correct (if they were referring to the Meta Keyword field, not keywords themselves). It is a confusing thing, and without being there, I am not sure if they explained it incorrectly or if they understand it incorrectly, themselves.

Using appropriate keywords (on your page and in your code) are still very important for optimizing your site. What an appropriate keyword is, is a whole different conversation. So, let’s stay on their comment about keywords for the time being.

There are sections within the site’s code called Meta Title, Meta Description and Meta Keyword Tags. These 3 sections use keywords (words that are ‘key’ to helping people find your site).

These sections aren’t visible to the site visitor, but are important to be filled out to help the search engines rank you better. However, the Meta Keyword Tags are currently believed to be ‘less important’ to fill out than the other two sections.

Which is where your friend’s comment comes from. What your friend was most likely referring to is: Google has publicly stated they are currently not looking at the Meta Keyword Tags, because folks were ‘stuffing this field with inappropriate keywords’ (in these cases people were using words or phrases that get searched a lot, but are irrelevant to the specific site’s content).

NOTE: Here is a video of Matt Cutt’s from Google talking about this subject (Sept. 2009):

Yet, “keywords” (appropriate words to describe your services, or better yet your potential client/customer’s current problem) are what these 3 Meta sections consist of, so ‘keywords’ are still relevant.

And, each page/post may have its own set of ‘key’ words or phrases, which may be more relevant to the actual content on that specific page.

See why it gets confusing?

But, again, going back to your friend’s comment, they were (or should have been) merely talking about the Meta Keyword section not being relevant, not the ‘concept’ of using keywords.

AND, now, this is where it gets even trickier: just because Google isn’t using the Meta Keyword section does not mean it isn’t being used by other search engines NOR does it mean Google won’t decide to use it again in the future.

So, I recommend you do fill out the Meta sections, per page, with the appropriate keywords to describe the content on each specific page.

And, since you (A’ra) are using WordPress, you can get a plugin to help do just that! There are many to consider, but I tend to use the free version of All in One SEO Pack.

SEO is a big subject, and we’re just tapping into it a bit here. What I suggest, if you are interested in learning more, is to consider hiring someone to either teach you or do the appropriate work for you (make sure it is a reputable company that keeps up on the latest info).  As an online marketing consultant, not an SEO specialist, I  do what I call SEO Lite, which sets you up with the best practices and latest info, to help you optimize your site for the visitors, as well as the search engines.  I prefer to teach these SEO basics (while focusing on other ways to generate traffic to the site, since most of my clients don’t have huge budgets for SEO).  The SEO Lite sets you up with a foundation, because SEO is an ongoing thing. And, it is better for you to understand the basics, so you can continue to optimize each page and post for its individual content.

If you don’t have funds for one on one consultations, I suggest (if you don’t mind taking the trip up to Boulder) taking Dave Taylor’s SEO workshops at Boulder Digital Arts – use coupon code Bethany2011, to get 10% OFF!

And, you can also read the blog posts I have written on the subject, here are links to them:

• What is a Keyword and how do I find mine?
• SEO tips: How to Optimize your site
• Setting Realistic SEO Expectations

What I tell folks is: You will probably have to read each of these posts a couple of times. Then start with some small steps.

Let me know if that answers your question.

Focusing on the many possibilities…
Bethany

So, this was the response to A’ra’s question.  But what about you?  Are you hearing confusing, concerning or even conflicting information on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or Keyword Research?  If so, comment below and I’ll try to answer it or find someone who can.  Who knows, maybe your question may lead to a full blog post response (I’ll always ask permission first, if I reference you by name)!  Or maybe you have some insights to share on the subject.
Feel free to comment below (with constructive suggestions, please):

Finally, WordPress.com makes it easier to switch over to a version of WordPress.ORG (self hosted version, that means it sits on your own hosting plan, instead of on their server, which gives you A LOT more freedom).  This used to be a chore to do, but WordPress.com has made it much easier with a new Premium option called Offsite Redirect.  Yes, Premium comes with a small cost, but nothing compared to the time and effort of the old way of accomplishing this.  It’s only $12 a yr.

So what does this Premium upgrade get you?  I’ll let them tell you with copy from their post about it called Hello, Goodbye: Offsite Redirect Upgrade – by Jane Wells

Purchasing the Offsite Redirect upgrade will take the traffic coming to your old wordpress.com blog and forward it to your new domain so that links to your old content won’t break and you won’t take an SEO hit as a result of your move. Oh, and unlike the old domain mapping/DNS workaround, the signup process is easy as pie. Mmm, pie.

So, now the question on your mind might be: Why would I want to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.ORG?

And, the answer is, if you are happy and have no complaints, stay where you are.  However, if you have ever wanted any of the following, it might be a good time to consider a move:

• Your own domain name: OK, this one isn’t that much of a problem, because you could always point your own domain name to WordPress.com – and there is even a way to make it so all your pages follow through with that address, but there is a fee for that!  So, if you don’t want your address to be MyBlogName.WordPress.com, you have three choices:
  1. Buy a domain name and point it to your .WordPress.com account
  2. Buy the domain and then pay a Premium to have all your pages and posts reflect that name
  3. Use the self-hosted version of WordPress.ORG – as I said earlier, this reason alone may not be compelling enough, but read on…
• Control of Ads: On occasion, the WordPress.com folks will throw an ad on your free .WordPress.com blog.  It is their way of keeping their service free (and they do provide a lot and ask little).  So, again, let’s compare the options.  The one concern is how they are placing the ads?  Are they relevant to your keywords?  Since I don’t know how they pick when to put an ad on someones site, it leaves some questions. And, though it is unlikely, I wonder if there is a chance they could put up an ad to your direct competitor?  Hopefully, they have a good system in place to avoid that, but here are your options, regarding ads:
  1. You can pay a Premium to remove these ads from your .com site/blog
  2. You can agree to do a 50/50 split to run your own ads now (I had never seen this before, so not sure of other details)
  3. You can move to WordPress.ORG where you can have the freedom to put up your own ads (maybe subtly promoting your own products/services), make money from offering ad space to others (if your site/blog is appropriate), or be completely ad-free.
• Scripts/Codes/Plugins: Sometimes you want to put a script on your site/blog, to do some functionality – for instance, collect email addresses from your visitors.  With WordPress.com, you can not put any 3rd party software or code onto your WordPress.com accounts, so you’d definitely want to move to WordPress.ORG to take advantage of the 1000s of amazing add-ons available from the WordPress community, in the form of plugins.  Go to WordPress.ORG’s Plugin Directory to find many of the free ones.  Similar to the iPhone Apps, if you are looking to do something, there’s a plugin for that…
• Customize the look of your blog/site: To do some light customization (changing colors, for instance) you could pay WordPress.Com to get into the CSS (providing you know CSS), but to get a look that really meets your vision, you could move to WordPress.ORG and use any theme (layout, the look of your site) or have someone custom create a look for you

Again, if you are happy with the way your WordPress.COM site works and/or OK with paying them the small Premiums to get some of the other options, then stay where you are.

However, if you are going to be paying for all those premiums, to try to get the results you want, I suggest using WordPress.ORG and have full control of your site (ads, look, plugins…).  To me, the plugins alone are reason to move!  Either way, you now have at least one less excuse for not moving to a self-hosted version!

I sure could have used this new Offsite Redirect feature, years ago, but glad to finally see it now.

Bottom Line: The $12 a year fee is a small price to pay, compared to the headache of the old way to do this redirect process!

Are you using WordPress.com?  Were you considering which version of WordPress (.com vs. .org) to use for your new site/blog?  Did this post help to answer those questions for you?  If you have additional questions, either comment below, or contact UniqueThink for a free 1-hour consult, to discuss your unique situation.

Below is a list of Must-Have WordPress plugins:

I will be updating this page with more info, but wanted to get it up and running now, so you can get these plugins up and running now:

Akismet: Spam Filter for your blog comments – here is what they have to say:

Who can? You have better things to do with your life than deal with the underbelly of the internet. Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again

All-In-One SEO: The ultimate in search engine optimization plugins! Here are their comments about the plugin:

Automatic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) out of the box for your WordPress blog …

This plugin is streamlined for some best practices for WordPress SEO. While it gives you many options the defaults reflect the settings I recommend using.

Google Analyticator Plugin: To me, there is no question, you need Google Analytics for your site stats. It tells you everything other than the visitor’s name and what they were wearing. You’ll know where in the world they are, what type of computer they are using and…most importantly…which of your pages they perused. This plugin allows you, in a few easy steps, to not only add the powerful Google Analytics script to every single page of your site/blog, but also displays results in your dashboard of WordPress! Now that is power! Not that you need to know what they say about it, but here you go:

Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog. This eliminates the need to edit your template code to begin logging. Google Analyticator also includes several widgets for displaying Analytics data in the admin and on your blog.

Broken Link Checker: I love this plugin! It is new to me, but one of my favorites already! Too often links go bad, this plugin checks your complete site and lets you know if there are any links that don’t work anymore. Here is what they wrote about it:

Sometimes, links get broken. A page is deleted, a subdirectory forgotten, a site moved to a different domain. Most likely many of your blog posts contain links. It is almost inevitable that over time some of them will lead to a “404 Not Found” error page. Obviously you don’t want your readers to be annoyed by clicking a link that leads nowhere.

FYI: This link checker also checks for images that are now missing! Brilliant!

Here are additional plugins, that you may need:

Exclude Page – If you want to hide pages from your navigational bar, this plugin is great. This is one you may or may not need, depending on the theme (template) you choose. Some theme developers are now including this option for you. Here is what they say about it:

This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus).

ShareThis: A great social media tool.  It lets you give folks a way to help share your posts with the world.  Here is what they have to share about their plugin:

ShareThis makes a WordPress plugin that provides an unobtrusive way for your visitors to post your site content to various social bookmarking sites, or send a link via e-mail & other communication channels (like Facebook and MySpace) to a friend.