On September 16th, I wrote a post on how to choose keywords for your website (here) in which I gave a very brief overview of how to go about deciding what your keywords will be for each page of your website. The reason for this post is to say “Just Kidding!” – It turns out that Google Search Engine does not look at your meta keywords when ranking your website/pages.  In my previous post I mentioned Google, Yahoo and Bing being the top three search engines but I certainly don’t know all their criteria for ranking.

Now let me state that I wasn’t playing a joke in my previous post. I stated that it’s important to have the meta keywords information embedded in the html code for search engine optimization purposes, however a new finding developed 5 days after that post, on Sept 21st.

Matt Cutts, google software engineer and head of their webspam team, published a blog post AND video talking about Google’s use of meta keywords. Long story short, Google does NOT consider this information in determining ranking of websites. That does not mean you shouldn’t include this in your website – Yahoo and MSN/Bing may very well use it in ranking consideration and likewise, it’s not going to hurt you…unless used in the wrong way.

The timing of this information being publicized is interesting (since I had just posted 5 days before about it) but we were informed on twitter that Google says it doesn’t provide value.

Several years ago I can recall when search engines lacked the ability to provide us with good quality results, but that has certainly changed. During the past few years search engines have dramatically enhanced their search capabilities, accuracy, speed and functionality. The top three search engines to date are Google, Yahoo and Bing (previously known as MSN/Live) which serve millions of searches every month on an unlimited number of subjects.

As a website or business owner, it’s in your best interest to carefully target your website with keywords that will help get you ranked high on these (and other) search engines. But how do you do this without the expertise? It can be somewhat time consuming but a modest attempt can do enough to make a difference in your search engine ranking.

To help you, I’d like to stress the following key points:

• Break down your website so you have each page targeting up to 3 related keywords. For example, if you have a page that is selling writing services, you can target copy writing, copy editing and website copy.
• In the website code, your ‘keywords’ meta data should list the same keywords you are targeting in your page. In the above example, copy writing, copy editing and website copy would be the keywords. There is no need to use more than 5 keywords here.
• Try to use the keywords (at LEAST one of them) in the <title> of the page. Again, this would be in the code as well.
• The meta description should use the keywords, all of them if possible. The keywords will show up as bold text in the results when someone does a search.
• Use internal links (to other pages on YOUR website) to related content/pages.

Those are basic necessities to using your website keywords properly for SEO purposes. You should also do some simple research to find out who your competition is for the keywords. Simply go to the three above listed search engines and perform searches for the keywords you want to target. You can see what they do on their website which may be helping to keep their rankings high. Additionally, you must realize that your website will not have an immediate effect to searches so give it a week or two to get indexed.

Update: Please read this update regarding choosing meta keywords

On May 12th, 2009 Google held an event called “Searchology“. At this event Google search team revealed their new defined user search options. In my eyes, it could definitely change common SEO practices.

The new search options open a ton of doors enabling a user to to define what they are trying to find. For example, if a search is performed for “x-22 irons” (Callaway golf clubs) and the user is looking for consumer reviews, they can simply click on the “Reviews” item under the options and Google will automatically bring up websites that give reviews on x-22 irons. You may be thinking “And why is this bad?” so let me explain. If your website sells x-22 irons and you don’t have consumer reviews as part of your website, that visitor will NOT see your website in the list, even if you have first page placement for “x-22 irons” on Google already.

Don’t worry too much, your business won’t crash overnight if the above is true. Google searchers still have to USE these search option features for them to be taken into effect. To throw another curve ball, there is also the ability to show results by time. This was available previously by doing some clicking in your advanced search options but now it’s a bit more prevalent.

Google put out a video on the search options which will show you a bit more information, such as the wonder wheel. It’s a feature that updates in real time and makes recommendations based on your searches. Honestly, you need to try it out yourself.

When you’re in the search options window, you’ll find the “Wonder wheel” link at the bottom under “Standard view”. This will suggest topics you may be interested in directly related to the previous item. Honestly, try it out to see what I mean – it’s quite unique.

These small search engine changes might appear to be insignificant but with time they’ll be effective for users who want the best search results possible. Your website(s) could be affected negatively…time will tell.