Understanding Meta Keywords
The world of optimisation is constantly changing, so it’s important to keep up with the latest SEO best practices. Meta keywords have formed part of many SEO strategies over the years. But what exactly are they and is there any need to still be using them?
What are they?
Meta keywords are a type of meta tag that appear in the HTML code of a web page. They give search engines more information about a page’s content and help to clearly identify specific topics you want to rank for. Remember, SEO is all about eliminating guesswork and making it really easy for search engines to understand the relevancy of your content.
Here is an example: <meta name=“keyword” content=”seo, search engine optimisation”/>
Are Meta Keywords Important for SEO?
Meta keywords SEO used to be really important, but Google hasn’t used meta tags to help rank web pages for over a decade. It may also come as a surprise to know that many SEO professionals don’t use them to tag at all according to a recent Twitter poll by SEO expert Bill Slawski.
If you have been tirelessly entering these into your HTML source code, don’t worry. You’ve not been wasting time as they aren’t completely redundant.
Should I Still Use Meta Keyword?
SEO is all about content relevancy, with search engines looking to deliver the most appropriate content. While Google doesn’t use meta keyword data as a ranking factor, other search engines do. The official documentation of Yandex – the internet’s largest Russian search engine – states that meta keywords ‘can be used when determining the page’s relevance to search queries.’ It might be a low-weight factor but with meta keywords potentially boosting the credibility of your page, they can still be considered valuable in some instances.
Meta keywords can also be useful for:
- Creating an internal tagging system
Entering meta keywords is easy in most content management systems and if you’ve already done this for most pages it can work to your advantage. By setting the tag as your target keyword on each page, you can keep tabs of the keyword you’ve already targeted to help avoid duplicate content. You can use an auditing tool to check keyword usage.
- Keyword research
Keyword research is an important part of business. You can find ‘seed keywords’ by looking at the homepages of your competitors and pasting relevant ones into a keyword research tool for a keyword ideas report. This will provide you with keyword ideas alongside search volumes and SEO metrics.
Be aware, however, that if you’re looking at what competitors are doing, they can also check out your strategy. To avoid this, you might want to remove meta keywords from your website by carrying out a site audit and deleting as appropriate.
To conclude, the presence of meta tags won’t impact your SEO strategy heavily, particularly where Google is concerned. That said, they’re a great way of labelling your content and helping you keep track of your keyword strategy.
Contact Whitefish Marketing today for all your SEO and keyword research requirements.
