Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

We`ve seen over the past forty or so years that "fads" have become more and more important in American culture. I don`t know about other cultures. My own perception has been that these fads have become so popular that learned people seem to think they actually mean something real.

At the same time, we have "the latest and greatest" concept of thinking about progress, along with "leading edge," and the entire youth culture. Young is better, not only in physical appearance, but in terms of history.

Taken together, I think we can connect up with the popular idea of gurus and other momentary experts in all kinds of fields of thought. Pundits are always telling us what`s new and what`s old, what used to work and what no longer matters. The only problem is that reality so often contradicts their pronouncements.

What`s really sad is the number of people who live their lives according to momentary fads and fashions. Think of the people who make lots of money on eBay selling pretty much brand new clothing that other people have thrown away simply because it`s out of fashion.

Using key words on a Web site is the same as having a point in a conversation. Anyone who says that meaningful discussion no longer requires having a point to make is a bit nuts, in my opinion.

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

Roland~ thanks for that info.  I`m just thrilled that the site is showing up on the first three pages of any of the popular search engines!  As you might be able to tell, our product page urls aren`t even search engine friendly so that makes it an even larger challenge.  We learned the hard way that the cart we chose was less than sufficient so we`re moving it all to another system.  Guess the real test will be whether or not we can keep decent positioning during that time.  A never ending battle!

Not quite a scientific study - you might actually have other factors that are far more SE relevant than keywords pushing your rankings up. And it`s doubtful the keyword meta tag is having any influence.

I took a look at one product page (since I was a bit interested in product itself - packedwarehouse site, magentic office stuff). That page had NO title, meta desc or meta keywords at all (first two being very important). And there was a page of CSS embedded right in the page itself, which is just another unnecessary layer of crud for a spider to drill through.

I did read that you are looking to change ecomm platforms, so I look forward to seeing the new improved website. Keep in mind during your quest that each and every page should be optimized for the content of that page, using solid SEO techniques that are actually well documented around the internet. (I won`t get into that again here).

thanks for that feedback, Mike!  The old site didn`t give us as much control over those things as we would have liked but we did what we could to make it work until we could get something with better functionality.  Wish we would have had the knowledge to know how limiting it was before we bought into it~  That was a costly lesson!   We`re really looking forward to using the new platform.  There`s still a bit of tweaking to be done here and there but we`re excited as we get closer to finally replacing the old with the new. 

I would be cautious about advice that tells you that certain html tags are not effective. Think about it. HTML tags are within our control of using it for good on-page SEO. So if a given tag has a change to have any weight whatsoever to the search engines, then we would be shooting ourselves in the foot for not using it.

I use meta keywords, meta description, title, h1 tags for starters. Why not? It`s there. It`s my chance to show the SE`s that my site is unique and adds value to the Internet space. Without HTML tags, what would the SE`s use to determine the main keywords from the secondary keywords and from the other words on a page?



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We work with established small to medium size businesses that are in the position to invest in improving the results of their online presence.

Let me ask you three questions.
1) What is your cost per online visitor?
2) What is your revenue per visitor?
3) What is the lifetime value of your customer?

I will cut to the chase on the SEO/SEM efforts to focus on increasing your bottom line.

Kraken on crack - you`re kidding right?

Well, don`t believe me, gee what do I know.

How about Danny Sullivan, one of the foremost experts on SEO in the world? Would that do?
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165061

And why NOT to use keywords? Why give away your competitive focus?
http://campaign-archive.com/?u=236234f22de2b71ac2c880bd6&id=4cdaf41594

SE`s use all the relevant, non-stuffed tags that make sense - wake up, it`s no longer 1999, and your old-world tactics don`t serve anyone anymore.