For Adam

Originally uploaded by blipfish.

Answer: As of today they’re frequently used search terms that probably don’t have a darn thing to do with your online business – so stop using them!

Okay, chances are you’re not really trying to gain un-targeted search engine traffic by using those words to bring people to your ebook or tshirt-selling site, but it’s important to also not to accidentally have valuable space taken up by words that lack relevancy, too, or not have the right words at all.

There are other things that help your site in Google besides hot keywords that may or may not be accurate.

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions are still important, folks. They’re not the end-all-be-all that they once were (or were professed to be) but they still have value. These are contained within the HTML of your page – so we’re not talking about stuffing the content of your blog or whatever with keywords – these are coded into the page itself.

A good title, which is descriptive to humans in describing your site accurately helps Google more effectively list your page within results. Google “learns” a little bit about you from this and human readers get a better idea of what you offer when they see your listing in their search results.

Meta descriptions tags are not that different. They are tags that are sometimes put to use as a “snippet” – a brief, but hopefully accurate description that shows up in the form of a couple lines of text under the title in search results. Again, this is sometimes provided as a greater description about the page in question.

Google usually attempts to provide a description based on search terms – obviously – but when the search fails to come up with it on its own it often relies on what you’ve provided in that description tag. So, it’s an important fallback element to have in place because Google, although good, doesn’t always figure out what the page is about and needs help.

Yes, I know I’m talking about Google like it’s some kind of artificial life form out for a walk.

At any rate, since this is just a drive-by post between my first cup of coffee and my morning walk (hey – it’s 4 degrees below zero outside. You BET I’m having coffee first)… I just wanted to give some quick pick-me-up reminders.

If you want to learn more about Google and the topic of Google and how it deals with your site – Google’s own Help Center has excellent reading.

Here’s my favorite picks on the subject:

“How can I create a Google-Friendly site?”

“Webmaster Guidelines”

Have a very happy ‘Single-Tasking Day’ and a wonderful ‘Martyrs Day’ …if that’s the correct greeting for Martyrs Day?

…Nancy – get me Bangladesh on the phone – I have a question about one of their holidays.