Seo is all about Meta Tags

How do you feel when someone who has heard of SEO (esp. programmers) say that seo is all about putting keywords in meta tags and you go on explaining that SEO is this and that and not so easy. From where people got this notion that SEO is easy and and it is all about meta tags.

From idiots who dont know about SEO and just talk the talk trying to make a quick buck. They probably edited the meta tags and had a jump in the serps without realizing that it was an external factor that had the effect on the rankings.

I can understand that this question can only come from people who look at SEO as something highly non-technical and as easy as a pie, which it isn't.......

I come across a lot of programmers and myself know about programming a bit, all i can say SEO is far more different and not so easy as copying a code from a website and pasting it in a program module!!

PS: May be if Google was'nt there, SEO's would'nt have been around, but coding would have been a difficult job too without Google....

I feel like there is hope after all... if only all my competition were that stupid, it would be easier pickings

It's good and bad.

Good: I hear this a lot, and it gives me confidence in my job security. If everyone out there relied on rumor and quick-skim research of old material, I'd be #1 for every keyword possible.

Bad: Since every webmaster claims to know SEO, it can make good professional SEO's look bad when they're defrauded by their amateur webmaster.

All in all, I think it's a positive thing that there are so many people out there unwilling to research and test on their own. We're all fighting against eachother to get to #1. If we were all trying to cure cancer, my sentiments would be different.

META TAG TALK makes my blood boil, read the link in my sig - META TAGS Rggghhhkkk!

lol... I enjoy that some people think that all you need to do is tweak a few tags.

There was a person who worked on sites with me and did some on-page optimization and light content development. She would edit the title and the H1 and write a little content. Then upload the page and it would rank high in under 48 hours. Thought that she was an expert at ranking websites.... didn't realize that this was a highly established website with thousands of links, lots of them highly trusted.

She left to work on other websites and thought that she would make a killing because it was so easy.... She knew how to rank a page in 48 hours. It didn't work as expected because the other half of the equation was the power and trust of an established domain.

Would you be surprise to find out that most people hired by SEO firms that later leave for their own firm opportunities have this same problem?

Knowing something about SEO is quite different from doing it all from scratch!

That is a surprise. Maybe this is also why some SEOs are satisfied working on other people's sites. They can do the SEO but don't have an interest in generating the content.

I tell them I heard programming is as easy as writing a 2+2 problem and ask them if they want to switch jobs for a week. I also say that I "heard" that fixing a car is simple and that perhaps we should all begin fixing our own cars, and besides those marketers man their job is easy, all they do is talk to people about the company all day. I mean Sheesh what are they getting paid for anyways?

If you are a true SEO then convincing these people taht it is much more than meta tag VooDoo (next time pretend like you dont know what meta tags are that'll get a good rise out of them) Should not be too difficult. Its about skill, experience, contacts, attention to detail and good old advertising and marketing.

Programmers are arrogant a-holes in general, I usually just talk with the marketing and management people. They are the ones who need convincing anyways. (they will be signing the checks)

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - meta tags are like the first step, ..... well keyword research to find out what to put in the meta tags is probabaly the first step but you get the idea, lol

However, in some very small markets all that is required is decent meta tags and some half decent content, but generally a lot more is required ..... and just when its just so the Big G changes the rules.

Being philosophical about value doesn't make value improve.

Meta Tags - DO NOT change ranking order... even the search engine programmers that devise the algorithm tell us this...

So your philosophical first step (even with the notion value of your keyword research 1st step) is taking the first step in the wrong directory... it is a non-step for SEO anything.

It is my professional opinion the longer we all focus attention on the stuff that "matters not" - the more clients desire stuff that matters not - to their own demise which they will categorically blame on you.

...you are IMHO the maker of your own problems!

Honestly, I feel like "Ohhh no...I have to explain it all over again to him/ her as well"

But I also get this sense of satisfaction when I help them understand how SEO really works.... [and also drive some people to SEOchat for better guidance]

Frankly, sometimes I feel irritated hearing people say that SEO is all about Meta Tags...but then again, it's not their fault..they are just repeating what they hear from pseudo-seos [you know the experts..we have lots of them...don't we???]

So I help them understand how SEO really works...I don't mind teaching people offline just the way I do it online.



From half baked facts and from hearsays...they didn't bother to try it out themselves....thus unaware of the real thing

What we should just not have any META TAGS ?? Like that would work well??

Whether meta tags help with ranking or not they assist the SE's understand the web page.

Also, since the Title tag and the Description tag show up in the SERPS I think you should pay attention to them, after all it is a human that reads them and decides whether to click thru to the web page not a Search Engine, if you pay a little attention to them you can definitely increase click thru's to the webpage which is what everyone wants anyway. Bragging rights that you are at the top of Google doesn't pay the bills when no clicks thru to your web page

And for the record, down here in little old NZ with little competition for some markets it sometimes only takes on-page adjustments to improve in the SERP's

However, in competitive markets and especially with Google it is off-page linking that of course is the major determinant with ranking results and in most cases that is where attention should be focused

the <title> tag is probobaly one of the most important tags in SEO while the meta data can be ignored with NO ILL EFFECTS.


the meta description is useless as well, while Google sometimes displays it as the snippet, Google is JUST AS LIKELY to display an excerpt of the actual text on your page. You have just about as much control over either or so you may as well spend your time writing content, for the visitor, that the visitor will actually see once they visit your page. Instead of making them wonder, where was that great piece of text I just saw?