SEO Questions - Mate Tags Keywords & Descriptions

[DontAsk]

I have a one man (plus SWMBO part time) micro business in a fairly niche market. I recently uploaded some new products and My site is already ranking 1, 2 or 3 in Google when searching for this products. That's not too surprising as there are relatively few competitors at the moment. Google tells me I have CTR of around 5%. I feel I am doing something right

OpenCart has fields for Meta Tag Keywords and Descriptions.

Are these relevant and useful?

Google is giving inconsistent advice from being important to don't use keywords as they may be seen as spam.

Another site says the descriptions are presented in the search results, but what I see in Google results is the opening text from the first paragraph on the product page, not the meta description.

I guess the answer might be "it depends...".

 

[fisicx]

It depends….

Ignore the keywords. Google does. The only time I use them is to confuse my competitors and put in the wrong keywords.

The description appears in the snippet and is a marketing tool. Won’t help ranking but can improve CTR. If the description is missing or not relevant to the search Google will use content from the page. This may affect your CTR.

 

[glenwheeler]

I have a one man (plus SWMBO part time) micro business in a fairly niche market. I recently uploaded some new products and My site is already ranking 1, 2 or 3 in Google when searching for this products. That's not too surprising as there are relatively few competitors at the moment. Google tells me I have CTR of around 5%. I feel I am doing something right

OpenCart has fields for Meta Tag Keywords and Descriptions.

Are these relevant and useful?

Google is giving inconsistent advice from being important to don't use keywords as they may be seen as spam.

Another site says the descriptions are presented in the search results, but what I see in Google results is the opening text from the first paragraph on the product page, not the meta description.

I guess the answer might be "it depends...".

I would say a really good place to start reading up on this type of thing is actually on https://yoast.com/academy/. Yoast SEO was predominantly and SEO Plugin for WordPress that uses a traffic light style system to make it really easy for users to understand what they are doing right and wrong when it comes to Organic SEO. Checkout their academy its great.

 

[fisicx]

Yoast is pretty useless. The traffic light system was flawed from the start. Focussing on a target keyword is a real red herring, Google doesn’t think that way.

Rankmath is a much better plugin.

 

[Shopclicks]

OpenCart has fields for Meta Tag Keywords and Descriptions.

It sounds like what you're referring to is the page Meta Title & Meta Description (the information which appears in search results). The Meta Title is your opportunity to tell users what the content of the page is about. The Meta Description is your chance to sell the page content to the user and encourage engagement. There is no guarantee that Google will use either and may disregard or truncate your text.

If you are seeing a field for meta keywords, as suggested by @fisicx you should ignore it.

Also not a fan of Yoast. A free course is worth exactly what you paid for it.

You are far better of reading Google's guidelines and adhering to them.

 

[DontAsk]

It sounds like what you're referring to is the page Meta Title & Meta Description

If you are seeing a field for meta keywords,

Actually, it's all 3.

 

[Shopclicks]

Actually, it's all 3.

Seems OpenCart didn't get the memo then. Meta Keywords started being ignored by Google many years ago due to abuse (manipulation).

 

[NickZ]

Google is giving inconsistent advice from being important to don't use keywords as they may be seen as spam

Google is giving advice to all,
Meta descriptions are used in many searchengines, the are more than just Google.
Ranking is OK, so how are sales?

 

[DontAsk]

Ranking is OK, so how are sales?

PIcked up since Xmas, based on old products. New are still "coming soon".

 

[glenwheeler]

Yoast is pretty useless. The traffic light system was flawed from the start. Focussing on a target keyword is a real red herring, Google doesn’t think that way.

Rankmath is a much better plugin.

Yoast has been around years and years when there was a lot of importance surrounding keywords, but still having this within the plugin as a focus point doesn't make it flawed nor useless in fact it works exceptionally well. It has over 5 million installs and is a huge success.

Rank Math is great too, have used both but have always gone back to Yoast for clients, its great and it works.

 

[Shopclicks]

when there was a lot of importance surrounding keywords

Seems an odd thing to say. Keywords are as important now as they ever were.

 

[fisicx]

It has over 5 million installs and is a huge success.

Popular =/= Good

It has very good marketing just like CF7 and jetpack. But the alternatives are often far better.

It’s a like GA. Hugely popular but one of the worse analytics options.

 

[NickZ]

Popular =/= Good

If you follow mainstream you'll never reach the top.
Most flies like a pile of crap, most kids like hamburgers, does that make it any better?

 

[Fagin2021]

An interesting question is whether tags, keywords or anything SEO is going to be of any importance at all in the future (as far as Google is concerned).

With Search Generative Experience (SGE) Google is moving to a 'no-click' results page - where the searcher finds what they want without leaving the results page and without visiting a website.

In this future, the searcher will be presented with a satisfactory, AI-generated answer surrounded by Google Ads. Good for Google but not so good for webmasters who'll have no option but to advertise with Google if they want to be seen.

Combine this with Google's thrust towards automation for advertising campaigns and it's goodbye to the PPC industry as well as the SEO industry and hello to Brave New Google World.

We're doomed. Doomed I tell you.

 

[fisicx]

If you follow mainstream you'll never reach the top.
Most flies like a pile of crap, most kids like hamburgers, does that make it any better?

Your posts are making less and less sense.

 

[Shopclicks]

Good for Google but not so good for webmasters who'll have no option but to advertise with Google if they want to be seen.

This is simply not the case. Generated responses draw on information garnered from websites. In some cases (where SEO practitioners know what Google is looking for), the source of that information is referenced via links.
SEO will change but does not become redundant. Page structure and content placement will be at the become as important as the quality of the content (EEAT guidelines).

 

[Fagin2021]

This is simply not the case. Generated responses draw on information garnered from websites. In some cases (where SEO practitioners know what Google is looking for), the source of that information is referenced via links.
SEO will change but does not become redundant. Page structure and content placement will be at the become as important as the quality of the content (EEAT guidelines).

That's rather my point. If the searcher is already presented with the information, they won't need to follow the attributed link. Anyway, that's just my speculation for the future.

An interesting experiment might be this (I don't know if anyone has done it, but probably)...

First, ask Google Bard a question - eg. "What are the most common questions asked about cameras ?"

Then, ask Google Bard for the answers to each question.

Then, copy the questions and answers onto a website page.

See if the answers appear in Google snippets or in the main results.

 

[Shopclicks]

That's rather my point. If the searcher is already presented with the information, they won't need to follow the attributed link. Anyway, that's just my speculation for the future.

This is not the case now and it won't be in the future. For some searches now, we see a snippet and a series of search results. Generally snippets give an appropriate answer to the query. The snippet is there to show the user that the page the snippet came from would be appropriate further reading.

SGE is still part of the search engine function. Snippets will still be taken directly from web pages and are not AI generated. There will be multiple snippets to choose from for a single query and they will show an appropriate image with the text. The AI generated results are displayed separately from the snippets and may or may not contain information garnered from or links to, pages where snippets were generated.

SGE is only taking up part of a search results page. The regular search results will still be available below the SGE section.

The major difference between old search and SGE will be how you optimise to appear in SGE results. It won't affect the actions people normally take, which is visiting websites. From what I've seen of SGE, I consider it a search 'assistant', giving more relevant options for the user. It's still a search engine, not a final destination.

 

[fisicx]

If I need a local plumber the map pack gives me people to choose from.

Not sure how AI anything will do any better.

 

[Fagin2021]

This is not the case now and it won't be in the future. For some searches now, we see a snippet and a series of search results. Generally snippets give an appropriate answer to the query. The snippet is there to show the user that the page the snippet came from would be appropriate further reading.

SGE is still part of the search engine function. Snippets will still be taken directly from web pages and are not AI generated. There will be multiple snippets to choose from for a single query and they will show an appropriate image with the text. The AI generated results are displayed separately from the snippets and may or may not contain information garnered from or links to, pages where snippets were generated.

SGE is only taking up part of a search results page. The regular search results will still be available below the SGE section.

The major difference between old search and SGE will be how you optimise to appear in SGE results. It won't affect the actions people normally take, which is visiting websites. From what I've seen of SGE, I consider it a search 'assistant', giving more relevant options for the user. It's still a search engine, not a final destination.

Well, I asked Bard about the future of SGE and this is what it came back with (no attribution of course)…

“Evolution of SERP features: The traditional "10 blue links" search results page might become a thing of the past. SGE's AI-generated summaries could take center stage, with traditional links relegated to a secondary position or even disappearing altogether. This could significantly impact SEO strategies and how websites gain visibility.”

Of course, neither you nor I nor, I suspect, 99% of Google employees know what will really happen in the future but I think the main difference between our respective viewpoints is this…

You might view Google as a search engine but I see it as an advertising platform with an underlying search engine. Whatever Google once was, it is now Alphabet and its focus is on revenue growth, cost reduction, market share, shareholder and financial analyst satisfaction.

I don’t believe Google is interested in providing searchers with the best results – only with results that are good enough to stop them looking elsewhere for their answers. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense for SGE to dominate the front page and keep the searcher on a Google property surrounded by adverts rather than send them to a third party website.

I doubt SGE attribution will help much. How many times have you read a Wikipedia article then followed links to the sources of that article? Like Wikipedia, SGE derives it’s information from a variety of sources and may or may not include a snippet with a citation.

Anyway, who knows? Our brave boys have just won the first Test Match against India which proves that anything can happen and maybe, just maybe, there is a God after all.

 

[Shopclicks]

If I need a local plumber the map pack gives me people to choose from.

Not sure how AI anything will do any better.

AI results are capable of showing local search results. The map pack will still appear on the page but below SGE, as will the Shopping carousel.

Edit: You should try Bing Copilot to see how it presents local search results.

 

[NickZ]

Your posts are making less and less sense.

You forgot to add: to me.
Your general advice is to follow others and do as they do. Popular = Good

The use of plugins is more negative than positive. Each plugin basically has a backdoor in which an attack could happen.

 

[fisicx]

You forgot to add: to me.
Your general advice is to follow others and do as they do. Popular = Good

The use of plugins is more negative than positive. Each plugin basically has a backdoor in which an attack could happen.

Read my post again. You postulated the opposite of what I said.

Popular is not equal to good.

 

[Shopclicks]

You might view Google as a search engine but I see it as an advertising platform with an underlying search engine. Whatever Google once was, it is now Alphabet and its focus is on revenue growth, cost reduction, market share, shareholder and financial analyst satisfaction.

I look at Google as a marketing tool. I'm only interested in how to best utilise Google for the benefit of my clients. I'm not interested in Advertising or Google's need to make money. Only what I can do to put websites in free search results, including any new format, like SGE, that might take on.

 

[Shopclicks]

The use of plugins is more negative than positive. Each plugin basically has a backdoor in which an attack could happen.

Again more total rubbish. You should learn when to stop digging.

 

[fisicx]

Edit: You should try Bing Copilot to see how it presents local search results.

Yuk. But that’s just me.

As an aside, I’ve made it so my business no longer needs search engines. So not fussed what changes Google makes.

 

[Shopclicks]

Yuk. But that’s just me.

Yeah presentation isn't the best but all the info is there. The noticeable difference is it's a completely different set of top results. For the search I'm using there is only one common business in both Copilot and Google in the top 3.

 

[antropy]

I have a one man (plus SWMBO part time) micro business in a fairly niche market. I recently uploaded some new products and My site is already ranking 1, 2 or 3 in Google when searching for this products. That's not too surprising as there are relatively few competitors at the moment. Google tells me I have CTR of around 5%. I feel I am doing something right

OpenCart has fields for Meta Tag Keywords and Descriptions.

Nice, sometimes we have people telling us OpenCart isn't great for SEO (usually WordPress developers) but that's clearly false from this and many of our clients who rank very highly for very competitive keywords.

Google is giving inconsistent advice from being important to don't use keywords as they may be seen as spam.

I think some other search engines might still use them?

Another site says the descriptions are presented in the search results, but what I see in Google results is the opening text from the first paragraph on the product page, not the meta description.

Google decides what to use but considers the Description so you should use it.

Paul.

 

[DontAsk]

Thanks for all the comments!

 

[fisicx]

Google is giving inconsistent advice from being important to don't use keywords as they may be seen as spam.

Missed this bit. Keywords and phrases are important within the structure of the site. They need to be consistent and holistic and part of the content. Which needs to be interesting and informative and add value. The site needs to be authoritative and trustworthy. so it's not so much the keywords themselves but more about how you use them.

What's not important is the keywords metatag. You can ignore this.

 

[PentechMoulding]

I have a one man (plus SWMBO part time) micro business in a fairly niche market. I recently uploaded some new products and My site is already ranking 1, 2 or 3 in Google when searching for this products. That's not too surprising as there are relatively few competitors at the moment. Google tells me I have CTR of around 5%. I feel I am doing something right

OpenCart has fields for Meta Tag Keywords and Descriptions.

Are these relevant and useful?

Google is giving inconsistent advice from being important to don't use keywords as they may be seen as spam.

Another site says the descriptions are presented in the search results, but what I see in Google results is the opening text from the first paragraph on the product page, not the meta description.

I guess the answer might be "it depends...".

Hello

I am not an expert but this old dog has learned a lot of things or two about website ranking over the years.

I have collectively around 20 websites and probably 15 unused UK registered domain names, back in 1990 when i wanted a company website someone quoted me £700 for HTML based 5-page static website, so i asked him how long it takes to make such a website he told me around a day provided you gave the content and images in time.

So I said to myself £700 for a day's work is excellent even if get £500 that would be a nice side hustle and learning curve, so went on a mission to learn how to make a website and found an excellent forum in USA and spent 1 - 2 months and grasped basics and made my 1st static website in 2 days it live the 3rd day.

Then a friend on that forum told me making a website without promoting is like sticking a leaflet in the toilet, so learned about SEO on page "Keyword, Meta Tag, and so on" off-page backlinks, and in a very short time my site was in serps first page.

Now we make our e-commerce or static websites on the WordPress platform, we have invested a small amount of revenue buying relevant plugins and themes including paid version of AISEO plus a tag plugin, all our websites are SEO'ed offline and online and basically, we outsource someone to do backlinks with high authoritative sites which cost around £50 per month per site and almost every website of ours is on first page of google in 2 or 3 positions for our targetted keywords and we maintain this progress every month.

PS: The other useful tool i came across is "Keywords Everywhere" which has a minimal cost, this is an add-on to the Firefox browser well worth it.

Sorry for long-winded note


Trust this helps

 

[fisicx]

….we outsource someone to do backlinks with high authoritative sites which cost around £50 per month per site and almost every website of ours is on first page of google in 2 or 3 positions for our targetted keywords and we maintain this progress every month.

Save yourself £50 each month on each site. A complete waste of time. Your ranking doesn’t come from these links. It’s also likely you are looking a personalised results.

 

[Shopclicks]

we outsource someone to do backlinks with high authoritative sites which cost around £50 per month per site

Unless these sites are driving traffic to your site and you're getting a decent ROI on the £50 from the links, keep your money in your pocket.

If your sites are ranking for competitive keywords, it will be because of the content on your site and core web vitals, not because of the links you're paying for.

 

[PentechMoulding]

Save yourself £50 each month on each site. A complete waste of time. Your ranking doesn’t come from these links. It’s also likely you are looking a personalised results.

Thank you for your feedback

We have trialed and tested the method and is successfully brought in revenue, So £50 invested for a revenue of 200 x is well worth it best part is we only sell our products and services to UK clients.

It's not just the competitive keywords we target that bring in results.

Important is generating revenue every single day and that is the end game.

 

[fisicx]

Thank you for your feedback

We have trialed and tested the method and is successfully brought in revenue, So £50 invested for a revenue of 200 x is well worth it best part is we only sell our products and services to UK clients.

It's not just the competitive keywords we target that bring in results.

Important is generating revenue every single day and that is the end game.

But the £50/site is wasted expenditure. The person building links is stealing your money. Google tells you this in their SEO guides.

Cancel the contract and your ranking will remain exactly as it is.

 

[PentechMoulding]

But the £50/site is wasted expenditure. The person building links is stealing your money. Google tells you this in their SEO guides.

Cancel the contract and your ranking will remain exactly as it is.

Thanks for your feedback.

So are you saying "Backlinks" are not important to bring your site up in SERPS, From what I know
Backlinks "DO FOLLOW LINKS" are basically votes from other websites. Each of these votes tells search engines: “This content is valuable, credible, and useful”.

So the more of these “votes” you have, the higher your site will rank in Google and other search engines

Or maybe you can shade some light to this which will be a learning curve for me.

 

[fantheflames]

Never paid for link building. Always done it myself or recommended clients to link build to specific websites. Thinking of moving away from Yoast myself!

 

[PentechMoulding]

Never paid for link building. Always done it myself or recommended clients to link build to specific websites. Thinking of moving away from Yoast myself!

Your are right if a few links are involved then it's worth personal time, However, we outsource and for a mere £50 per site per month she does our link-building on a daily basis.

Well worth it cheaper than paying one of our staff in the UK.

We use AISEO on all our sites and is very easy to control plus lot of other features.

 

[Shopclicks]

Your are right if a few links are involved then it's worth personal time, However, we outsource and for a mere £50 per site per month she does our link-building on a daily basis.

Is Pentech Moulding in your profile one of the sites you're paying this person for?

 

[fisicx]

So the more of these “votes” you have, the higher your site will rank in Google and other search engines

No! This is so wrong in every way

Google is looking for endorsements from trusted, authoritative and relevant website. If the links do add value they will be ignored.