Keyword META Tag for SEO

How would you like a magic pill to make your website shoot up the search results?

That’s what some people seem to think about the keyword meta tag. In this post I want to tell you the truth.

It seems that nearly every business owner who wants to optimize their website for the search engines is aware of the keyword meta tag. Or they become aware of it when someone tries to sell them a search engine optimization service.

The Keyword Meta Tag Conversation

The conversation might go down like something like this:

SEO Salesperson: “Hi Mr. Business Owner, you need my SEO services for your website.”

Business Owner: “I already have SEO service.”

SEO Salesperson: “Oh really? I looked at your website and that service did not set up the meta keyword tag. That tag tells Google where your site should appear in the search engines. It’s missing from all the pages in your site. Maybe you need a new SEO service.”

Business Owner: “Wow, thanks for telling me. It must be my lucky day! I’m going to rip into my SEO guys.”

Business Owner: “Hi SEO Guys, WTF. This other company told me you have not set up the keyword meta tags on my site. What am I paying you for? You are supposed to get my site showing up in Google and you are not telling Google my important keywords.”

SEO Guys: “Sorry Mr. Business Owner, the keyword meta tag is useless. The other company is just trying to scare you into buying their service. We could have set up the meta keyword tag for you, but that would have wasted time that could be spent on a more valuable activity.”

At this point Mr. Business Owner’s confidence is a bit shaken. He doesn’t know who to believe. Even if he accepts his SEO Guys explanation, a little mistrust was injected into the relationship. The SEO Salesperson created a little doubt.

That’s good for the SEO Salesperson, bad for Mr. Business Owner who might drop a good service in favor of sham.

Ignore That SEO Salesperson

In this example, the SEO Salesperson is playing on the prospect’s lack of knowledge. You see, while the keyword meta tag continues to exist, its use by Google is long-dead.

In years past, unscrupulous people used the keyword meta tag to position their sites where they didn’t belong. Since the keyword tag is hidden information this was easy for them to do without any negative consequences.

But search engines caught on and determined that other factors are much more important than a hidden keywords listing.

Want proof, here’s a video from Google posted on September 21, 2009. The keyword tag has been dead a very long time.

Before you follow some bad advice, it’s good to know what’s important for getting your website to the top of the search results.

As long as you or your SEO Guys do the right things, and are not wasting time with techniques that died more than 6 years ago, your website can show up exactly where it needs to be.

What META Tags Are Important?
What Are Good SEO Guys Working On?