Are Meta Keywords Still A Thing?
-
Hey all! First post on here, forgive me for being an SEO newb.
Are meta keywords still a thing? Here's why I ask, I read this article from back in 2009 that said they are absolutely not a ranking factor anymore: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
However, in doing some research on our competition, I found that the top result for "Financial Advisor in Colorado Springs" was this company: http://www.strasbaughfinancial.com/
Honestly, the site seems to be doing everything opposite of what I read to do. It isn't even mobile responsive! With the Moz Bar, I found that no links pointing toward it. Not one video on the site (there is a link to a welcome video but the link is broken!!), no blog or regular content updates, no keywords in the H1 or H2 tags, page titles, etc. The website looks old and, frankly, terrible. Really I’m stumped how this can be ranking so high for so many competitive keywords.
Then I realized that they stuffed tons of keywords in the meta description and meta keywords. From what I can tell, this is the ONLY intentional SEO strategy they used. Am I missing something? Are meta keywords still a ranking factor and THAT important?
-
This is not important, you can read this:
http://www.wordstream.com/meta-keyword
The domain age is one of the best factors
-
Thanks so much!! This is very helpful.
-
If you want to know the real reason of why that page is the position 1 look at the backlinks of that page ( anchor text/quality of the links/quantity of the links )
Check the audit
4700 backlinks / 26 Referring IP / Domain Score 3
-
Meta keywords are not still a thing, at least in Google search!
So looking at Strasbaugh, and answering some comments you made:
- You're right, it's not mobile responsive - this can be a detriment, but it's not going to knock them off the first page in most cases just because of that. It's a small percentage of the overall factors
- Site design - I feel that I have pretty high standards, but I wouldn't call this "old and frankly, terrible" - I'd say it's decent for this industry. Keep in mind they're not trying to be a creative design agency website
- Domain age can be a helpful factor if it truly is old
- Unfortunately, the Moz bar isn't the best source to find a high volume of links (yet) - using Ahrefs I see 70 linking root domains, which is pretty decent for a local firm
- Video, H1, H2, blog/content updates - those can be signals but are not deal breakers if other factors exist
- Titles are important, but they're not totally bungling them. They at least have their core phrase "financial advisors" in there, although yes all the pages should have rewritten titles
- One thing that's likely helping is that its links have generally good anchor text. Mostly "Strasbaugh Financial Advisory" in the link anchor. This is something that I thought Google would have discounted more by now, but that's not the case, it's still a strong signal
- Lucky for you, if they're a competitor, is that in looking at their traffic on Ahrefs, they actually don't get a ton of it, it's only about 53 visits a month. The important thing to note is that your example keyword exactly as you phrase it "Financial Advisor in Colorado Springs" - gets 0 searches a month. The keyword "financial advisors colorado springs" gets 20 searches a month and they are ranked #4
- Looking a page like http://www.strasbaughfinancial.com/who-we-serve - they have decent helpful informaiton on there. It's not 10x or even 2x content by any means, but it's better than what I see on a lot of these local financial firm websites
Hopefully that helps! The good news is that if you think what they're doing is minimal, then you should be able to replicate and improve and then rank!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Keyword Stuffing - Image Alt
One of our category pages is keyword stuffed. But we are not able to change the image alt text. It is automatically generated as the title of each product. We would be able to get the keywords down if that was not the case, but now there is 30 alt image keywords along with 25 other elements of the keyword. I can only change 2 image alt texts. What can I do here?
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
Is it still worth changing a url with half the pages target keyphrase in to the entire phrase still ?
Hi If a pages url has half the pages target keyphrase (i.e. 1 word instead of 2) is it still worth changing to include entire keyphrase (2 words) given need to then add 301 redirects etc after ? If it was a new page then I would definately include full keyphrase but the page is a few months old and has quite high page authority as is (i know a 301 should transfer most authority) but given this page and other sub pages would also need to be 301'd if this change occurs and the dev time/cost that would incurred/charged by the design/dev agency. Also thinking Google being cleverer now (the pages content will be about the target kw) so thinking G would work it out from rest of page content and partial match kw in url. In other words to best target keyphrase is it best to leave url as is or change url to include keyphrase ? For example if the pages target kw is 'swimming clubs' and the current url is www.franksleisurecentres.com/clubs changing it to www.franksleisurecentres.com/swimming-clubs :Thanks Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Keywords per Page
Iv'e looked through the QA here and there are a lot of different conflicting opinions on what is a generally a good idea. For Example Florist Clearwater Clearwater Florist Florist in Clearwater Florist in Clearwater FL Clearwater FL Florist Clearwater Florida Florist Florist in Clearwater Florida Florist near Clearwater FL etc.... So for something like this example....should I have one page represent all of these keyword iterations or split them among different pages?
On-Page Optimization | | BenGMKT0 -
Broad keyword usage vs appropriate keyword usage
May I ask what is the difference between "broad keyword usage" and "appropriate keyword usage" that is included on the on-page reports? thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | karalyte0 -
Keyword reversal
Suppose you want a page in your website to rank for a two word phrase like "red wagon". So you create a page mywebsite.com/redwagon.html and optimize it for "red wagon". Suppose the domain name redwagon.com is taken, but the domain name wagonred.com is available. Is it possible to take advantage of the available domain name wagonred.com to improve the rank of mywebsite.com/redwagon.html?
On-Page Optimization | | ChristopherGlaeser0 -
Should I bother with branded keywords in my onsite SEO improvements?
Someone recently told me that using branded keywords extensively in your copy and titles may be unnecessary so long as you have a substantial catalog of back links containing keyword rich anchor text. Can I take this to mean I can privilege non-branded terms over branded in my onsite SEO efforts?
On-Page Optimization | | bbelgard0 -
Brand keyword is on every page
Suppose a website is devoted to a selling a modest number of products that are sold under one brand name. For example, the site might have product pages for Chevy Camaro, Chevy Suburban, and Chevy Volt, and many other pages related to Chevy. Chevy is in the domain name and on virtually every page. Competitors are also selling Chevy's and you want to rank well on the keyword "Chevy". One SEO rule is limit a keyword to one optimized page, and if it appears on other pages, minimize the use of the keyword on other pages, and pass links to the optimized page. However, it can be really challenging to write prose without using the brand name, particularly if the brand name is of the form "brand training method" or "brand learning center". The other pages can't say "training method" or "learning center". They need to say "brand training method", etc. What are the tactics to rank for a brand name when it appears on virtually every page? Best,
On-Page Optimization | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0