Question on ranking keywords
- Thread starter Shagaru
- Start date
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,626
4. Neither!
Meta keywords are not important anymore, and you don't only rank on title tags, either.
When they're scumbags (which has become a norm lately) google will rank you based on whether or not you buy google ads, despite of having the most white hat and well optimized site ever, so the meta tags won't matter squat in this scenario.
Outside of google ads, your brand (popularity, trust, authority, all that crap) and topical relevance of your site matters more than meta tags... and even the content matters more than meta tags, not to mention the number and quality of backlinks which is still the #1 ranking factor (after google ads, obviously)
Long story short: use meta tags to rank in other search engines (bing, yahoo, yandex, DDG, whatever...) cause those search engines still use meta tags, but you can pretty much ignore them if google is the only SE you care about
EDIT: do care about the Title tag, though as it still matters how people see your site in the search engines and it might increase your CTR, but know that google can still re-write your meta title if they want! They've been doing this a lot lately
Meta keywords are not important anymore, and you don't only rank on title tags, either.
When they're scumbags (which has become a norm lately) google will rank you based on whether or not you buy google ads, despite of having the most white hat and well optimized site ever, so the meta tags won't matter squat in this scenario.
Outside of google ads, your brand (popularity, trust, authority, all that crap) and topical relevance of your site matters more than meta tags... and even the content matters more than meta tags, not to mention the number and quality of backlinks which is still the #1 ranking factor (after google ads, obviously)
Long story short: use meta tags to rank in other search engines (bing, yahoo, yandex, DDG, whatever...) cause those search engines still use meta tags, but you can pretty much ignore them if google is the only SE you care about
EDIT: do care about the Title tag, though as it still matters how people see your site in the search engines and it might increase your CTR, but know that google can still re-write your meta title if they want! They've been doing this a lot lately
Place your target keywords in Title, sub headers, within the first paragraph of content under H1, page URL, alt tag of image(s) used etc
Royal96
Power Member
- Mar 16, 2019
- 683
- 376
Do you know if Google is rewarding websites with better organic rankings when they're running Google Ads?
I had one website where I used Google Ads and published a few blog posts, and they weren't ranking too bad in my opinion.
But it was just one website, and I have nothing to compare it to, so it's hard to tell if this had any effect.
I just read that keyword tag is now useless thanks. So where do I put my general main keywords now? Does putting it in about page in a form of paragraph/sentence with sense will do its job?
I bought SEO services targeting keywords on my keyword tag so I'm thinking maybe I'm doing my SEO wrong?
HustleTong
Elite Member
- May 30, 2019
- 13,466
- 10,662
Keywords embedded in your articles are most important of all
Pay attention to crafting better content
Pay attention to crafting better content
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,626
Never tried it personally, but I saw a few folks mentioning it so I chose to believe them cause it lines up with what I know about google
check in your GSC where your site ranked before and after you bought google ads. But check the URLs that were already ranking, obviously, not the ones you created when running google ads
fb3003
Elite Member
- Aug 14, 2015
- 5,035
- 3,500
you need a lot more understanding of keyword and on-page optimization
good place to start: https://diggitymarketing.com/on-page-seo-checklist/
also, take a look at the top 3 sites for your primary keyword and see how they have done it.
another basic tool to use for your keyword to get a sense on what others are doing: https://www.keywordsheaven.com/on-page-tool/
i am pretty sure google legal team is all over this to ensure that no one can prove any correlation between ranking and usage of google adwords
- Oct 28, 2020
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I don't see how they can disprove that, but good luck to them
AmberJones
Senior Member
- Jun 12, 2017
- 1,049
- 387
yea 90% of my traffic comes from other search engines outside google.
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,626
Neat! I guess google's hegemony is on decline, huh?
bbloverz
Junior Member
- Jun 30, 2020
- 156
- 33
So to rank on 1st page should I keep working on this mainly?
- Oct 28, 2020
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- 14,626
In general, yes. You can rank for any keyword, in any niche, with the right amount of (quality) links.
But, it's not always as straightforward as it sounds. Sandboxing, your brand popularity and trust, your domain's authority, etc... these things all matter, especially in competitive niches like business, finance, medical... even travel I'd argue. So, just by getting 1 million links of the highest quality will not outright place your site at #1 for "best investment firm" (just an example of a tough keyword that I could pull off the top of my head) in google USA, you will probably still need to wait 1-2 years for your domain to age and gain enough trust and authority before you are allowed to compete with the big dogs in that industry