The Sticky for Meta Description, keywords, keyword density, and title tags

Shut up shut up shut up. I've been back for three weeks and I don't comprehend why daily there is a new post regarding about topics. Let me run them down for you including the much debated description tag. I have a new thought on that one (not new new, just fresh...

Title tags: Exceptionally Important. Use it for page description, brand recognition, keyword placement. Want to know how many characters? Go count yourself in Google results.

meta description tags: IMO no ranking addition (may be wrong.) IF it's off topic and unrelated to content does it hinder some Google score? We can almost certainly safely conclude you don't get benefit from the tag.

Benefits then? If you don't have content that reflects the site/page content/ search term, then a description tag will help. It also provides the impetus for more clicks then another result with an unclear description.

However most disagree whether this is actually true since tests are inconclusive. From my perspective it DOES help a small minority and is therefore beneficial for said reasons above. If you, however, have targeted content that will do well as a description, no need for the tag.

From my tests on eye-tracking and CTR the TITLE tag is usually what people will glance over not the description tag. Having said THAT we still have evidence that descriptions still work.

Case in point? an example used in the keyword density argument--Dell.com

Dell.com ranks for 'computers'. Sure they have tons of links, but how on earth does Google find title and description tags with the KW computers?! if they don't have it in their content.

The title tag is derived from a DMOZ listing (with 'computers'), however, but the meta description is also used and contains the word 'computers'. So it DOES suggest that if you're a hermit and were searching for computers, didn't know who Dell was, (and they didn't have a dmoz listing), seeing the top ranked site with 'computers' in the description (and in this case title) may induce a click.

keyword density

Copy and paste me recent response....Some SEOs actually look at KW density. I think it's stupid. If you do the normal optimization for 2-3 keywords per page (i.e. bold the words, in the title tags, header tags) then why are you looking at KW density?

Anything between 0-100% is fine. 100% means you have a page with one word, 0% means you may get traffic through LSI (latent semantic indexing) traffic.

At the end of the day it's about your content. if you pay attention for LASTING and VALUABLE content to your target market then you will NATURALLY incur keywords throughout the document/page. If you write for search engines then you'll have to pay attention to your stupid English pages and your keywords densities.

Write for people, optimize for engines, write great content for people, lasting content, valuable content. Stop WASTING time on densities. that's so 2003.

And with that, stop posting the same crap, ppuuhhlease.

Great attempt djstreet, i hope it really cause people to shut up regarding these out dated topics!!

Thanks for writing that up.

I think that we need a page somewhere that links to several of these "sticky" threads. When a new person comes in asking these same questions we can give him the link to the basics and tell him to go read first and then ask questions.

This wouldn’t be a bad idea, I would certainly go thorough it before asking my noob questions

djstreet and EGOL, well said. We should have section like that for new comers. Each and every day people are coming and posting threads on description and keyword density. This kind of section with some great posts on the basic factors of SEO by experts of this forum, can be really helpful for the new comers.

I think mods should think about this.

I like Egol's idea. We have a bunch of excellent threads that explain each answer completely. Grouping them in an idiot-proof manner could be beneficial to the forum as a whole. Then everyone can just spit out the link for this section of threads when a repetitive question is asked. (Maybe even include a button next to the icons that would automatically generate the link so we can save even more time.)

As far as Keyword density goes, I like the way Google is moving. I'm guilty of having spent too much time on density in the past, producing some garbage pages. I got it down to a science where the pages eventually were of good quality, but super dense. After seeing how backlinks have taken over everything as being the power behind true SEO, I don't bother with density anymore. This is SEO's way of natural selection. What works lives, what doesn't dies, or at least doesn't reproduce much.

well it seems to have worked because i haven't seen the bi weekly post on these topics.

i find sticky threads useless as most people don't read them anyway and i am one of them Most of these threads become outdated in few weeks/months and consequently become dangerous. Title tags are important today, but tomorrow they may not remain important at all. But an outdated sticky thread will keep on reminding to its readers, title tag is important unless someone bothers to update/remove it. People come on forums in serach of first hand and latest information on a particular topic/problem. If i have to read and read and read, then i will go to sites like searchenginejournal.

Thanks for posting some basics. If there were a FAQ, I would definitely go through it.

Reg

Actually there is although it may need some updating...
http://forums.seochat.com/seo-chat-faqs-64/seo-faqs-17418.html

Can we not have at the top of the whole forum a "NOOB QUESTIONS ANSWERED - NOOBS CLICK HERE" and have a vast array of all the tutorials various members have made?

We can just direct them to that section, and make sure they cant post a thread there and only mods can add the posts etc.

Does seem to be a nice idea and i think that can really reduce the number of similar questions thrown. For example, a thing i am noticing is may be there is a drop in queries about meta tags but on the other hand, there has been a substantial rise in the queries regarding google's "link:" operator.

Everyone's seems to be complaining about losing their links, it gets frustrating to see the same question every hour or so and answering them, if left unanswered, its open to all kind of speculations by some other newbies.

something has to be done about it perhaps.

Only one question... how are you going to get members to go there and read before posting? I got an idea and I need to pass it by the admins and see if they can take care of it... it would certainly reduce useless posting to some degree.