You might be surprised to learn that Matt Cutts, who works for the Search Quality group at Google has most recently come out with comments about meta tags or more specifically “keyword” meta tags and stated “Google does not use keyword meta tags” in their rankings. For the longest time many SEO professionals pounded the desk suggesting that keyword meta tags were critical for any SEO campaign.

According to most SEO Companies, Google has for many years completely ignored this tag which has made the use of this meta tag completely pointless. I know as a Denver SEO company, we have definitely utilized the keyword meta tag and we will continue to do so. It is not that we believe that this meta tag would help us in the rankings, rather we have used it to define the theme of each page that we publish. So, although Google has stated that they do not utilize the keyword meta tag, we have still found much use for it.

Usually when speaking to anyone with any knowledge of SEO, they will go over a list of important factors to complete when working on a SEO campaign. One of the first things we hear many SEO companies speak about or write about is the importance of keywords in the keyword meta tag. This might be a warning to those that are looking for the experienced professionals who actually know SEO and focus not only on “onsite Optimization” but “offsite optimization” or link building as well. I have included the Matt Cutts Video in this post about Google’s complete lack of interest in the keyword meta tag, you can read more about their disinterest in the keyword meta tag here on their very own Webmaster Tools blog.

So why would Google disregard the keywords meta tag anyway? It started several years ago when the meta tag was actually abused by many website owners. If Google strictly followed the keywords in the meta tags, than it would be easy to mislead or misdirect the search engines. Google has probably one of the most elaborate and complex algorithms for their search results which has made them a market leader in search. So it is going to take much more than meta tag to throw them off course.

Even though Google has stated that they ignore keywords, we will continue to use this meta tag as previously described. It gives us direction for each page that we produce and keeps our entire campaign organized so we find it very useful even if Google does not. However, when you are talking to that next search engine optimization sales representative or SEO Company that goes through their thorough process of search engine optimization, you might ask,”How important is the meta tag keywords for a SEO campaign?” You might just be talking with one of those that is not in the know and this would be a good way to find out!

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Press Releases are a very important way to distinguish or differentiate your company in the public’s view of your company. Most companies already understand this strategy and in one way or another they have used press releases to make special announcements or they have responded to some event. Today, with the internet press releases can be used in a myriad of ways that will assist in your search engine optimization efforts.

So how can it be done? How do you compliment your Denver SEO campaign with press releases? The press release campaign online is very different than your standard press release through traditional print media sources. If I working on a press release in Denver, I would probably distribute the PR to all of the local papers of course and then issue a second wave of press releases to my local publications and neighborhood publications. None of these are really going to assist with my search engine optimization in Denver, although by making mention of my website inside the press release I would probably receive some “direct traffic” from the release. Direct traffic in this case would be short lived and not give a permanent back link into my website. So, to answer my questions in the beginning here, I would distribute my press releases online to services on the web that enable you to link the content in the press release to your website. By adding one or two useful links in the article to your website or URL’s within your website, you will be assisting your Google PageRank and overall linking strategy which will affect your keyword position in the leading search engines.

Using distribution services is important because these sources of news usually already have a high page rank. So when they release the press release, usually the article will start to show in the top of the search engines for the keyword that you targeted throughout the article. So for example, if we released a press release on “Denver Internet Marketing” and we submitted the release with this keyword to the major online PR services, our article might likely show up for this search term through the PR sites. If someone searches for this term online and finds the article before they find our site, it is likely that they will click on our site within the article or perhaps one of the hyperlinked key phrases inside the article. The nicest part of this press release is that it does not get thrown in the trash with the daily paper, it remains online pointing at our site for as long as the press release service keeps it up!

These online PR services can cost anything from $1 up to $315.00 and they all seem to offer different programs. What I mean is that some are enhanced for SEO purposes while some of the better performing services like prweb.com and prnewswire.com are a little more traditional with their services. Remember to follow Google’s guidelines when creating your press release, you will want to establish a release that has useful content and that is not stuffed with keywords. So a couple of examples of releases that might work for your business would be the announcement of a new location, a new service or product that your company is releasing or perhaps you are speaking at a tradeshow or industry event.

Preparing your release is important as you will want to target the keywords in your press release, but you will also want to make the release useful and readable. Making the release readable and useful is priority number one; however, if you can include your keyword phrase in the title or headline and utilize the keyword or phrase in the first paragraph with a link back to your web site, this will assist in the optimization of the release. You do not want to force the key phrase in to your press release; it should be an organic process (Some tips to avoid keyword stuffing).

Many companies pass the opportunity of using PR as they believe it is too expensive and does not deliver enough benefit to their marketing campaign. If they are simply looking at the short term, they are correct. If they are focusing on optimizing their site and obtaining an excellent online presence than a press release online is one of the cheapest and most ethical ways to obtain solid back links to their site. One of the biggest “pros” that an online press release can achieve for your company is that it will establish another link to your company’s website from a credible source. So for those customers that have found you online and now want to review what “others” are saying about you, this press release might come into play as they are researching your company and assist them in their buying process.

Cade Lee is a search engine optimization professional in Denver, Colorado. Working at Iniquitous, Inc. as a professional SEO, Cade actually assists companies in obtaining a larger web presence through social networking, article marketing and video marketing.

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It is almost impossible to not throw yourself into the design of your new website. When we were designing our brand-new website, we made some of the very same mistakes that we see clients make on an ongoing basis. We included aspects or features to the website that we really liked, and we forgot for a moment that our demographic or audience is business owners and business professionals. For us we are going to have to go back to the drawing board and redesign a completely brand-new website that focuses strictly on professionals, and their pain or needs for Internet marketing versus making it more fun and personal for us. I think it’s very easy to forget who you are designing a website for.

The same goes for search engine optimization, it is so often that we see customers suggest key phrases and keywords that definitely apply to their business; however, “John Q. Public” will probably not use the key phrases and keywords originally selected by the business owner. For example let’s take my industry, I am a professional search engine optimization expert in Denver, and I think that probably one of the most used search terms for customers that are looking for our services would be “Denver SEO“. When we talk with customers about how they found us online, we find that they very rarely come to us using that exact search term. For us the search term Denver SEO makes the most sense as we are in the business, and search engine optimization is most often referred to as “SEO”, so would that make the most sense that companies and marketing professionals in the Denver area would type in “Denver SEO”?

The fact is that most of these companies or individuals that are searching for search engine optimization and Denver do not use the keyword “Denver SEO”. When I look at the analytics for our project, most of the searchers that do come to our website are finding us through the search term “Denver SEO”, yet when I speak with customers that have found our website online and called us they have usually used a different key term or keyword phrase. Perhaps “Denver SEO” is so popular because it is our competitors that use this term, or maybe it is industry professionals that are involved in internet marketing. My point here is that the customers that are calling usually type in something much different like “Denver Interent Marketing Companies“. So although we are getting much traffic from obtaining a first page ranking for the keyword “Denver SEO”, we also have to consider other extrapolations of that keyword such as “Denver Seo company, Denver Seo firm, Denver Seo professional, Denver search engine Optimization Company, search engine optimization Denver, etc.”

The extrapolations or longer keyword phrases are usually much easier to obtain a page-one ranking than a one-word or two word key phrase. Using these variations of search terms in setting up your website will help you to avoid stuffing your pages with the same keywords and give you the ability to produce more content that is actually “useful”. Ultimately at the end of the day you are not producing the website for yourself or for Google, you are producing the website for the end-user. By developing content that is useful and has relevant keywords sprinkled throughout the content piece, you will obtain a lower bounce rate and a higher conversion rate from the website.

The video that I’ve included in this post is a short example of how to use keywords and keyword phrases throughout your blogging campaign that will complement your search engine optimization campaign.

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Optimizing yoru Google Profile could prove to be easier than any other "Social Networking" site

By: Cade Lee

Your Google Profile never really had any use until now. When I say that what I mean is that there has never really been any practical use for it. I guess most of us used the profile to update our photos for Google Talk but that was definitely the extent of it until this week. Around October of last year, Google started indexing profiles by allowing their robots to start crawling through the profiles. Since then not much has happened until the past few weeks. I have started to see these profiles show at the bottom of the pages when I search for various names.

The minute that I started seeing the different profiles show at the bottom of the search engines, I had to log into my Google account and figure out the process for getting my profile on the 1^st page of Google. Now, it’s important to note that profile shows at the bottom of the 1^st page of Google, but the first page is the first page to me. So, anyway to start with your Google profile start here. Once you have landed on Google’s profile page, if you are already logged into your Google account you will automatically be brought to the profile page that you will need to complete. If you are not logged in you will be asked to login and then you will be brought to the profile page. As with any directory submission or social networking profile, it’s important to fill out as much of the profile as possible. I have found that the “Bio” section of any profile is one of the best places that you can place some of the keywords that are important for your profession or business. So as with any content you will want to make certain to place your keywords within the bio here. In my bio or “about me” section I was able to utilize anchor text and back link to those sites that I have been optimizing for my own personal SEO campaigns.

Another key feature to Google’s profile is it allows you to input related URL’s for your profile along with Anchor Text or “Link Name”. I was able to put my linked in page, Facebook page, Twitter profile as well as my blog and website and there was still room for my URL’s if I wanted. As a side note, all the links created through the Google Profile are “dofollow” links which I have never really cared about. I have always figured a link is a link even if the bots cannot follow it. I wasn’t expecting the profile to be as SEO friendly as it is. You can view my profile here.

After completing the profile I searched my name immediately and seriously, seconds after completing my profile, I was placed on the first page of Google for the search term, “Cade Lee Denver” and “Cade Lee “. Granted my name is a little different than John Smith, but you will notice under the search “Cade Lee” there is a martial arts expert (or something like that) with my same name. So there is someone else in the world with the name Cade Lee after all.

After seeing such quick results I wondered, “What would happen if a company opened a Gmail account using appropriate keywords in the e-mail address, and then worked the profile for ranking?” So I did it. I opened a Google account for denver-seo-firm@gmail.com. I completed the profile as previously described, and no, it did not make it to the first page immediately (in the profile section) for the search term “Denver SEO Firm“. I am proud to say that within the first 7 days of completing the profile, the profile has made the first 100 with no other efforts made. I believe the first profile made the 1^st page immediately because it was an older account and Google had probably already indexed the profile.

I will be following up on this article in the near future as the next step is going to be building backlinks to these profiles and watching the effect of this in the rankings, I will be using the denver-seo-firm@gmail.com profile to see if we can obtain rankings for “Denver SEO” (very competitive search term in our local market). I will amend this post with what I find!

Lastly, Google does have a verification process for your profile as discussed by Chris Crum of Webpronews.com on April 23, 2009. For more information on getting your Google Profile Verified, read more here. Note that I have not gone through the verfication process with any of the profiles mentioned above.

Cade Lee is a search engine optimization professional in Denver, Colorado. He is a SEO/ SEM coach and speaker specializing in optimization for local and long tail keywords.

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