For once, Vickie Pollard just might have some credibility…and ironically, in respect to SEO and keyword tags.

If there was ever a perfect question for Little Britain’s Vickie Pollard and her dodgy “Yeah, but, no, but, yeah, but…” responses, it’s “Do keyword tags matter?”

So, do they? Well, like you didn’t see this coming yeah, but, no, but, yeah, but…

Keyword Tags: No, They Don’t Matter

…or at least that’s the prevailing attitude among many SEO experts. They aren’t without reason.

Why? The short answer: Google. Back in the stone age of the Internet (read: the 1990s), keyword tags and hidden text were de rigueur for climbing the page-ranking ascent. Google essentially leveled the playing field, creating many of the challenges that impact modern SEO.

Today, it is thought that Yahoo! is the only major search engine that uses keyword tag metadata, but only as part of its overall process for producing search results.

Keyword Tags: Yes, They Do Matter

…and this is very much the prevailing attitude at AVID Design. Reasons include:

• Why not? This might seem like a trite answer, but really, why not? If you are developing content that is crafted for SEO, then you are already starting with a group of carefully researched keywords. It only takes a very short amount of time to add them to your code, so why not type ‘em in?

• CMS: Unless you have Google’s algorithm in your CMS’s search code in which case we’d like to take you out to dinner and become your new best friend, you are still likely depending on keyword tags to produce search results.

Most simply, your CMS search isn’t as sophisticated as Google’s—nor does it need to be. Your CMS is only searching within your site (rather than trying to navigate through millions), and therefore, it “trusts” that you aren’t trying to take advantage of it—for example, overloading it with keyword tags to improve page ranking.

• SEO: You are probably thinking, “Wait? SEO? Didn’t you just say that keywords don’t affect search engine results?” And again, we’ll say that they don’t. But we also said that if you are serious about your SEO content, you would be starting with a select group of keywords.

However, what if you don’t get the results that you expected? Your keywords will be the first thing you’ll want to review. If you took the time to write the keyword tags, you won’t have to dig through old notes to determine what those words were!

• The future: A decade ago, you’d be foolish to not use keyword tags as a primary SEO tool. Today, you’d sound like a fool if you still believed that.

Who’s to say what’s going to happen in the next decade? Again, if you know, we’d like to be your extra-bestest friend. Like with the “Why not?” reason, this relatively simple step just may prove to be a critical device in future SEO development.

Keyword Tags: A Final Tip

Now that we’ve resolved the question about whether keyword tags matter—or at least leaning towards the argument that they do—don’t go overboard. Consider using a maximum 10–12 keywords or phrases as a best practice.

Derek Rudnak | Communications Specialist | AVID Design

Tweet This Post

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 7:04 am and is filed under Best Practices, Pop Culture, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.