If it was 1997, and judging by the stock market’s performance it just might be, the era of stuffing keywords into meta tags is long over.  The Keyword tag has been ignored by Google for years.  Some of my colleagues believe it helps in Yahoo.  Frankly, I’ve started leaving it out all together and my sites still show up in the top 10.  

As for the Description tag, its use for ranking is nominal at best, but it is still quite useful.  When someone sees your website in the search engine rankings, the Description tag is often used as the snippet under the link.  Yes, there are exceptions like pulling a description from DMOZ but generally speaking the Description tag is used.  Think of this tag as an opportunity to convince the surfer your website is exactly where they want to visit.

So what is useful?  We already discussed the handy but not rank worthy Description tag and the virtually worthless Keyword tag.  The last one, and one of the more important tags on your site, is the Title tag.  Not only is this one used for ranking, but it also shows up as the link that people click on when they find your site in the search engines.  Combine a compelling Title with a persuasive Description tag and you’re one step closer to getting that person off the search engine and onto your web site.  Plus, it helps with your ranking, so always use this tag and make it unique! 

SEO is about doing a lot of little things right that add up to a big leap in the search engine rankings.  Make sure to keep an eye on the little things that matter like the Title and Description tags and spend little to no time with the lowly Keyword tag. 

I’ll let you folks in on a little secret. Sometimes the amount of traffic coming from long tail phrases is greater than the traffic from one strong keyword. I know it sounds crazy, but looking at my personal sites and those of my clients I’ve seen this distinct pattern emerge time after time. While one or two key words will get thousands of hits, these phrases may get 10 or 20. But there are hundreds of phrases contained in a site.

The long tail is your friend for two distinct reasons. Number one: you are getting traffic and from my perspective, all traffic is good. Number two: your visitors are getting a better search experience because they are more than likely to find exactly what they are looking for on your site. A happy targeted surfer is more likely to convert to a sale.

So should you be targeting long tail terms? Of course! When I plan a SEO campaign, I’ll pop open a spread sheet and type all my key words in one column. In the next column I’ll put in all the modifiers, i.e. the stuff that makes up the phrases. Going back to my previous example, I’ll put “cars, automobile, and autos” in column one. In the next column, I’ll put in “Honda, Toyota, and Chevy.” In the next column I’ll put in “new, used, and previously owned.” Now comes  the fun part, mixing and matching. Start making phrases with all your words. Mix and match is the name of the game. When you’re done, take your combinations and pop them into your favorite search engines. See if there is actually any competition for those phrases. Once you’ve done that, use a tool like WordTracker or Overture’s free tool to see how often people actually search for those phrases. When you find a combination that has few competitors and a high number of searches you’ve got a winning phrase that should get you some nice long tail traffic.

Now that you’ve got your list of phrases, make sure to incorporate them into your SEO friendly ad copy. You need to be smart, and write it so it’s as appealing to people as it is to a search engine spider. I guarantee when you start consciously targeting the long-tail phrases you’ll get more target traffic to your site.

“Our mega store has NFL footballs for sale at low prices. NFL Footballs are a great gift for children of all ages. Buy our NFL footballs on line right now.”

As you can see, it is clearly written for the key words “NFL Footballs.” I know you’re thinking that I wrote that terribly to prove my point, but no.   I’ve found text that bad on a client’s site. Granted, it does have a high density for the keyword phrase, but stuffing your phrase into every sentence is not going to win you any points with search engines. More than likely, you’re going to get hit with an over optimization penalty, and, even worse, potential customers are going to walk away with a negative impression of your business. Take a look at the same pitch only rewritten:

“We have the best prices on NFL footballs in Minnesota. Made from premium quality leather our footballs are built to take NFL-style punishment and come out shiny and new. Whether your athlete is in high-school, college, or pee wee league, these pro NFL footballs are perfect for any age.”

This new pitch still mentions NFL footballs as often as the last one, but it presents it in a much more natural sales-oriented way. Not to mention, we are going to grab some long tail terms by seeding the text with keywords that pertain to the target market (high-school, pee wee, etc.) and it even mentions the geographic location: Minnesota. If you were a consumer, which pitch do you find more appealing?

Writing proper ad copy is both an art and a science. Just practice a bit and you’ll find that you’ll start writing SEO friendly ad copy. So in conclusion, write for people first, search engines second.

So what exactly is the significance? When it comes to established web sites that have a certain amount of authority, the big G won’t hesitate to snap up new pages and pop them into the index. I know what you’re thinking, "Yeah, that’s great Glenn, but we already know about the Google Sandbox and trusted authority sites.” My point is I think the speed at which new pages can be spidered and indexed has far been underestimated. Instead of waiting a day or two to see pages in the SERPs, it’s actually possible for them to appear in a matter of minutes. That’s one Speedy Spider!