SEO questions

[jcrewe]

Hi there :)

I'm hoping I can get some current information with regards to SEO. I've had my site for at least three years. With certain keywords, I am appearing on page 1 of Google. What I noticed the other day is that if I search one of my product names, I'm not ranking at all. This is confusing to me as I thought bots picked up product names. Even at ranking high with certain keywords, my site traffic is still pretty low.....less than 50 per day. One option I thought of was url renaming, however, threads I have read here recommend against it. Another option was to improve my meta tags but then I've read that doesn't really help either. That's left me totally confused as what to do. Why are my product names not coming up in a search? I know there are a lot of differing opinions with regards to SEO but I'm hoping there are some 'consistent' suggestions out there that can help get my site on the right track.

Thanks :)

[RodG]

Hi there :)

I'm hoping I can get some current information with regards to SEO. I've had my site for at least three years. With certain keywords, I am appearing on page 1 of Google. What I noticed the other day is that if I search one of my product names, I'm not ranking at all. This is confusing to me as I thought bots picked up product names. Even at ranking high with certain keywords, my site traffic is still pretty low.....less than 50 per day. One option I thought of was url renaming, however, threads I have read here recommend against it. Another option was to improve my meta tags but then I've read that doesn't really help either. That's left me totally confused as what to do. Why are my product names not coming up in a search? I know there are a lot of differing opinions with regards to SEO but I'm hoping there are some 'consistent' suggestions out there that can help get my site on the right track.

Thanks :)

Content, content, and even more content. One caveat. The content needs to be relevant to what the customers may be searching for.

URL renaming *might* have a *very small* effect when comparing two sites that would normally rank equally, but the long term issues are generally far more bothersome than any benefits you would possibly gain.

Metatags are a mixed blessing. Correct and valid metatags (for any given page) can offer SEO gains, but 'incorrect' metatags (ie: a metatag keyword added where the keyword doesn't exist anywhere on the page) will have a *negative* effect, and the site could be penalised for 'keyword stuffing'. Use these with great care.

Page Titles. These have very recently taken me quite by surprise. They make a significant difference in the Google rankings (Don't know about other SE's).

I've "recently" had one site that *used* to have the *name* of the Store as the leading part of the page titles. It was ranking rather poorly for most of the search queries for his actual products. After I'd changed this so that the product names were the leading part of the page titles, the searches for said products slowly crept up from not being found at all to the number#3 position.

That was until a couple of weeks ago, and the client requested/asked for the Titles start with the store name once again. In less than a week, the same search query found the page had dropped to near the bottom of page#2.

We've now reverted back to having category and/or product names as the leading part of the page Titles, and am now carefully monitoring the situation to see how long it takes to creep back to the #3 position. The Pages/Site had no other changes other than this.

Having said that, what works "today" may not be as effective "tomorrow". The ranking algorithms are *constantly* being updated, and as many people have found over the years, it doesn't pay to try to 'outsmart' Google. It is *their* aim to rank sites with good customer orientated content higher than sites with lesser content, and I'd bet my last dollar that if the page title contains something like "This is a really great product" and the page itself has no content relating to that same text then like the 'old' practice of 'Keyword stuffing' such a site would be penalised rather than rewarded.

At the end of the day, the site needs to be written and designed for a good *people* experience, and never ever designed simply to get good SE rankings.

Cheers
RodG

[jcrewe]

Thanks Rod for your reply :) it is, however, clear as mud to me! LOL! I have done a lot of research on meta tags and how to set them up but I'm feeling like i'm still not grasping the concept

In my category Chocolate Bars, I have entered in the following meta tag keywords:


I think my keywords are relevant to the product, however, I am getting the impression from your response that if my keywords are not elsewhere in the product they will be irrelevant and make me rank lower....is that correct? If so, now I am totally at a loss at what I am supposed to do

[DivaVocals]

With regards to re-written (pretty) URLs:
It's interesting that the so-called "debate" over the use of URL re-writers is unique to this open source project.. The Drupal, Joomla, Open Cart, WordPress, Presta Cart forums don't have many (if any) of these kinds of IMHO silly a$$ed pretty vs native URLs debates because the feature (pretty URLs) is a native ADMIN CONFIGURED OPTION that is part of the core code for all of these projects..

The long protracted discussions on this forum regarding pretty URLs are old and tired and mostly based on opinions that are rooted in "facts" that are no longer applicable.. Frankly some folks are truly sounding like the folks 30 or so years ago who used to make statements like "I don't know why anyone would need to own a personal computer"..

Bottomline is this.. Search engines are okay with native URLs from apps like Zen Cart AND the two CURRENTLY most popular URL re-writers are not the unstable error/bug prone beasts that were originally unleashed upon the unsuspecting Zen Cart masses when URL re-writer modules were 1st introduced..

So I say install Ceon URI or Ultimate SEO if you want to.. There is NO REASON to NOT have URLs which include keywords for your pages.. PERIOD.. and the argument that URL re-writers cause "more" damage to a site than any other kind of module is also unsubstantiated rubbish (my opinion) I often have seen pushed forth that is NOT backed up by any MEANINGFUL statistics to support that OPINION.. Oh except the one bit of "proof" most often offered is the LENGTH of the support thread.. Hell Image Handler's support thread is HUGE, and I don't hear anyone suggesting that it does "more" damage to your store than any other mod..

With regards to meta tags:
Search engines do not use meta tags for page ranking.. Google, Yahoo, and Bing have all made it clear that meta tags are no longer used to determine page ranking. They do use them for other reasons though so you should optimize your site's title and description tags. You can forget about the keywords meta tag.. Search engines do use this tag AT ALL for ANY REASON anymore.. (anyone who tells you otherwise is exercising wishful thinking.. just because I believe really hard in Santa, he is not real, and he is still a fictional character..)

If you need proof that page rank is not determined at all by meta tags, then look at ANY Zen Cart site which is ranking well. Though some shopowners are using Zen Cart's built in meta tag features for product and category, most will not bother with this.. Beyond editing the title, description and perhaps the custom keywords in the meta_tags.php language file, the majority of site owners do not take the time to create page specific meta tags for the home page let alone for any of the other index pages in their site or even EZ Pages. all of this is currently managed in the meta_tags.php language file. There is also no native admin mechanism to set meta tags for the Manufacturers pages.

So with regards to meta tags, it's not about keywords.. It's about a good description of the page, and titles need to be just what they say, the title of the page. Please feel free to read what Google says on how to properly construct titles and descriptions. https://support.google.com/webmaster...624?hl=en&rd=1

In my opinion, because of the way Zen Cart applies the custom keywords define from the meta_tags.php language file, it should not be used AT ALL for a few reasons.. The most obvious reason is that the keyword meta tag is ignored by search engines.. The other reason is that this define is concatenated to the keywords and description tags on ALL site pages, so it's use looks like keyword stuffing.. On some sites this looks can look quite spammy..

Zen Cart's native meta tagging actually violates some of the rules that the search engines use to delist sites. In particular:

• "Avoid keyword stuffing"
• "Avoid repeated or boilerplate titles"
• "Brand your titles, but concisely. The title of your site’s home page is a reasonable place to include some additional information about your site—for instance, "ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle." But displaying that text in the title of every single page on your site hurts readability and will look particularly repetitive if several pages from your site are returned for the same query."

For example, the "All Products" page meta tags natively generated look like this:

• Title: Consists of a concatenation of the following values including Page Title Text (the h1 tag) + Page Title Define + Site Tagline Define
• Keywords: Are an extract based on Product Categories + Custom Keywords Define (if there is a value defined)
• Description: Consists of a concatenation of the following values including: Page Title Define + Page Title Text (the h1 tag) + Keywords + Custom Keywords Define (if there is a value defined)

Suggest downloading and USING both the EZ Pages and Manufacturer meta tags plugins..

[RodG]

With regards to re-written (pretty) URLs:
It's interesting that the so-called "debate" over the use of URL re-writers is unique to this open source project.. The Drupal, Joomla, Open Cart, WordPress, Presta Cart forums don't have many (if any) of these kinds of IMHO silly a$$ed pretty vs native URLs debates because the feature (pretty URLs) is a native ADMIN CONFIGURED OPTION that is part of the core code for all of these projects..

Agreed, but that is why I consider the 3rd party URL rewriters to be a bad thing. It isn't really the rewriting itself (at least not initially) but rather the inconsistancy between the different modules and the way they are implemented, namely, via extensive modification of the .htaccess files.

These other systems don't have these same issues. The 'Pretty' URL's are internally generated, so as a general rule there are no 'ReWrites' taking place.

The long protracted discussions on this forum regarding pretty URLs are old and tired and mostly based on opinions that are rooted in "facts" that are no longer applicable.. Frankly some folks are truly sounding like the folks 30 or so years ago who used to make statements like "I don't know why anyone would need to own a personal computer"..

Frankly, these discussions (even this one) wouldn't exist other than the fact that some people seem to constantly confuse the difference between "Pretty URL's" and the 3ed party process of creating these URL's.

As far as I'm concerned (and always have been) is that the URL's themselves are unimportant, being neither beneficial or detrimental for SEO purposes.

Bottomline is this.. Search engines are okay with native URLs from apps like Zen Cart AND the two CURRENTLY most popular URL re-writersare not the unstable error/bug prone beasts that were originally unleashed upon the unsuspecting Zen Cart masses when URL re-writer modules were 1st introduced..

I can't argue against this either, but you did emphasis the key point of 'currently'. It is the *future* where the problems actually occur, and we see this time and time again as and when the (what should be a very simple .htaccess file) gets updated, modified, updated again, and so forth. It is only a matter of TIME before things go belly up, as is the case in another thread that I've been involved in over the last few days.

So I say install Ceon URI or Ultimate SEO if you want to..

And *I* say DON'T do this. By your own admission you state that they don't offer any SEO benefit, so therefore exactly what is the benefit of installing something that will probably eventually cause a problem if there is nothing to gain from it. This is just common sense.

There is NO REASON to NOT have URLs which include keywords for your pages.. PERIOD.. and the argument that URL re-writers cause "more" damage to a site than any other kind of module is also unsubstantiated rubbish (my opinion)

You sound like a broken record. When was the last time that anyone has said this? The closest that *I'VE* ever come to saying anything remotely like this relates to the fact that Rewriting a URL comes at a cost. The cost being that they take up CPU power, which can slow a site down, BUT, I haven't even said this for several years because computers have gotten faster and more powerful that this effect is now negligible.

I often have seen pushed forth that is NOT backed up by any MEANINGFUL statistics to support that OPINION..

Can you please direct me/us to a *recent* thread where these claims have been made (Anything in the last 12-18 months will do).

I'd like to know who is still spreading this misinformation ;-)

With regards to meta tags:
Search engines do not use meta tags for page ranking........

I agree with most of your comment here, except for one.

• "Brand your titles, but concisely. The title of your site’s home page is a reasonable place to include some additional information about your site—for instance, "ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle."

Up until last week I would have agreed with this, but this is *exactly* what caused my clients site to drop from the #3 position in Google down to near the bottom of page#2 (and I suspect it would have eventually disappeared into non existence (where we managed to pull it from) unless we took action to prevent a further fall).

My *current* advice to people would be to forget the 'branding' in the page titles, UNLESS the 'branding' is something that people are going to be searching for.
If people are more likely to be searching for a *product* then this product name should the 1st 'element' of the page of the page Title.

Please don't take my word for this. Try it yourself.

If you have a page Title (on a products page) that reads

"ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle. : Product Name"
and one that reads
"Product Name : ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle"

And someone searches for "Product Name" the second example will be near the top of the search results. The first example *could* be nowhere to be seen.

On the other hand, if someone did a search for "ExampleSocialSite" the opposite will hold true.

As I say, I've 'discovered' this with a very recent experience of a site raising up from from nowhere into 3rd place, then dropping back to the end of page two (and falling), and now it is slowly rising again (up 3 places in 24hours).

The *only* change has been to the page titles.. from
"ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle. : Product Name"
to
"Product Name : ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle"

and back again.

Actually, you don't even need to try this for yourself, just do a Google search for a *product* and look at the the 1st line in the 4 or 5 line results. This is the line in BOLD, and it is also the contents of the page Title. Take note of the top page results. The 'branding' or "ExampleSocialSite" is nowhere to be seen. The top results are those that contain the product name being searched for in the leading part of the page titles. (In fact it was this observation that caused me to make the initial changes on this clients site in the first place). It was with reluctance that I reverted it back so that the store 'branding' took this prominent place in the page title, and it really didn't take long (less than 2 weeks) to realise that this was a big mistake.

You may take or leave this advice as you see fit. All I can say for sure is that I've seen the evidence for myself.

Cheers
RodG

[DivaVocals]

Agreed, but that is why I consider the 3rd party URL rewriters to be a bad thing. It isn't really the rewriting itself (at least not initially) but rather the inconsistancy between the different modules and the way they are implemented

Ceon URI and Ultimate SEO are not inconsistent. They MERELY take two different approaches to solve the same issue..

via extensive modification of the .htaccess files. These other systems don't have these same issues. The 'Pretty' URL's are internally generated, so as a general rule there are no 'ReWrites' taking place.

Nope sorry.. this is not true.. Take Joomla and WordPress for example.. they both require rewrites to use their built-in pretty URL features and therefore include changes to the .htaccess file..

Frankly, these discussions (even this one) wouldn't exist other than the fact that some people seem to constantly confuse the difference between "Pretty URL's" and the 3ed party process of creating these URL's.

None of us are confused.. we all know how they work, and the authors do a pretty good job of explaining how they do..

As far as I'm concerned (and always have been) is that the URL's themselves are unimportant, being neither beneficial or detrimental for SEO purposes.

This is true.. so why oh why are folks so quick to scream DON'T DO IT.. It's a choice. You choose not to great.. good for you.. Someone else makes a different choice.. good for them.. You do realize that this is the ONLY open source forum that is even DEBATING this????

I can't argue against this either, but you did emphasis the key point of 'currently'. It is the *future* where the problems actually occur, and we see this time and time again as and when the (what should be a very simple .htaccess file) gets updated, modified, updated again, and so forth. It is only a matter of TIME before things go belly up, as is the case in another thread that I've been involved in over the last few days.

Sorry.. this is really NOT a compelling argument to NOT install one of these modules.. ANY MODULE could blow up in the future with one errant line of code.. Hell I could get into a car accident tomorrow.. not gonnna stop me from driving my car because it COULD happen..

And *I* say DON'T do this. By your own admission you state that they don't offer any SEO benefit, so therefore exactly what is the benefit of installing something that will probably eventually cause a problem if there is nothing to gain from it. This is just common sense.

Except they do offer OTHER benefits, and so there are OTHER business reasons to install them.. SMH.. I am constantly amused by the fact that folks here don't seem to think that folks can and should be allowed to have a choice on this matter.. I am also constantly amused by the fact that folks here still arguing against that choice seem very much out of touch with the rest of the open source world where this isn't even a debate AT ALL.. The so-called "problems" always eluded to with regards to these modules ALWAYS come down to USE ERROR.. pure and simple..

You sound like a broken record. When was the last time that anyone has said this? The closest that *I'VE* ever come to saying anything remotely like this relates to the fact that Rewriting a URL comes at a cost. The cost being that they take up CPU power, which can slow a site down, BUT, I haven't even said this for several years because computers have gotten faster and more powerful that this effect is now negligible.

I sound like a broken record?? Please.. the fact that folks around here are STILL rallying against pretty URLs is what is starting to sound like a broken record.. BTW.. I wasn't speaking about YOU persay when I said "the argument that URL re-writers cause "more" damage to a site than any other kind of module is also unsubstantiated rubbish (my opinion)".

Can you please direct me/us to a *recent* thread where these claims have been made (Anything in the last 12-18 months will do).

I'd like to know who is still spreading this misinformation ;-)

I'll be happy to send that info to you privately.. Not gonna drag other folks into THIS conversation..

I agree with most of your comment here, except for one.

Right.. Except three things..

A. This isn't MY list.. I quoted it from Google.. Hence the quotation marks around them and the reference to Google..
B. You've taken that list out of context.. Please re-read my post.. I preceeded that list with the following text: "Zen Cart's native meta tagging actually violates some of the rules that the search engines use to delist sites." What followed are things that you DON'T want to do..
B. Please NOTE that the example they are speaking of refers to JUST the home page.. It doesn't say append this SAME text to EVERY PAGE TITLE.. In fact it says the OPPOSITE.. That bullet point ends with "But displaying that text in the title of every single page on your site hurts readability and will look particularly repetitive if several pages from your site are returned for the same query."

In fact that is EXACTLY the point that I was making with regards to Zen Cart's native meta tagging functionality and it's SHORTCOMINGS.. (please go back to my VERY DETAILED breakdown of how Zen Cart's NATIVE meta tagging works..) So I don't need to test what's happening for your client.. I provided examples as to what is happening.. I kinda already have a good grasp of the native meta tagging feature.. It is lacking..

[RodG]

You do realize that this is the ONLY open source forum that is even DEBATING this????

Yes, and for the simple reason that ZenCart is one of the few CMS's that doesn't generate 'Friendly URL's' out of the box, so people try to circumvent this with 3rd party modules. I can only repeat once again, I (and most others, I assume) aren't anti Friendly URL's, we are anti having to use a 3rd party products that have been shown time and time again will cause problems. Whether these problems result from the software itself (which I admit is quite rare), or whether it is caused by 'User Error' isn't, in my opinion important. The end result is still the same, people come to the forum on an almost daily basis because something isn't working as a result of poorly written rewrite rules.

As there is little to no benefit to be gained from these rewrites I will forever insist that they simply aren't worth using. If the Friendly URL's were natively generated it becomes a whole new ball game, as these 'future problems' will no longer be an issue (Well, not until some smartass comes along with another 3rd part module that claims to do a better job than the natively generated Friendly URL's.

Sorry.. this is really NOT a compelling argument to NOT install one of these modules.. ANY MODULE could blow up in the future with one errant line of code..

This is true, but as a general rule, the benefits to be gained from most of these other modules far outweigh the risks of using them.
Since the 3rd part URL rewriting offer little to no benefit then the risks aren't worth taking.

Risk Management 101.

Hell I could get into a car accident tomorrow.. not gonnna stop me from driving my car because it COULD happen..

Again, this makes perfect sense, because the benefits gained by driving generally outweigh the risks of having an accident.

What if we add a little alcohol to the mix? This is known to dramatically increase the risk of having an accident, to the extent where the benefit to risk ratio becomes unacceptable... So much so that after a certain limit it becomes illegal to drive.
How is this any different to the URL rewriting scenario? It is just adding to the risks when there is no compelling reason for it.

Except they do offer OTHER benefits, and so there are OTHER business reasons to install them..

Bad choice of words. When you say 'other benefits' this is assuming that there was already at least one benefit to start with, and since the discussion was revolving about SEO benefits, which we all seem to agree are negligible at best) we only need to consider what benefits they do give.

I know of three benefits.

1) Where the URL is to be published in print media.
2) Where a page has been moved from its *original* URL to a new URL.
3) Security reasons (to redirect known exploits to a 'safe' page)

Can you give details of any other *known* benefits (I'm sure there must be, even though I can't think of any).

I still think it is absurd to take a perfectly good functional URL (that is natively created) and immediately redirect it somewhere else purely for cosmetic purposes.

SMH.. I am constantly amused by the fact that folks here don't seem to think that folks can and should be allowed to have a choice on this matter..
.

And I'm constantly amused at Developers that are afraid to tell their clients when they are making bad choices. If *my* customers want to do something that I *know* isn't good for them I will do everything I possible can to educate them of the error of their ways.

Yes, it IS the customers choice if they choose to drive a 4 cylinder car in a Formula One race (even if they do like the colour better) but I'm certainly not going to encourage them to do so. I'd rather explain why I think the car with the bigger engine is going to be better suited for their purpose.

The customer *isn't* always right.

The so-called "problems" always eluded to with regards to these modules ALWAYS come down to USE ERROR.. pure and simple..

That may well be true (I'm certainly not going to dispute this), but if they can avoid these problems by NOT using something that offers so little benefit then I'm all for advising people of this fact.

Again, it is a benefit/cost balance. Why incur a potential cost when there are no benefits to be gained? (or more precisely, the potential costs outweigh the benefits).

Right.. Except three things..

A. This isn't MY list.. I quoted it from Google..

That probably explains why I only found one 'fault' with what was written. ;-)

B. You've taken that list out of context.. Please re-read my post.. I preceeded that list with the following text: "Zen Cart's native meta tagging actually violates some of the rules that the search engines use to delist sites." What followed are things that you DON'T want to do..

You are also guilty of this. I was only discussing the page titles. The metatags were not part of the discussion (other than the mutual agreement that these aren't used by SE's for ranking purposes).

B. Please NOTE that the example they are speaking of refers to JUST the home page..

OK, I have to admit, that this *important* fact did escape my attention. However, I *thought* it was pretty obvious that my discussion revolved around the *product related* pages, and not the singular home page.

It doesn't say append this SAME text to EVERY PAGE TITLE.. In fact it says the OPPOSITE..

I'm sure that you are already aware of this, and since Google thought it worthy to mention the home page as a specific/special case, it is also worth noting that ZenCart has specific defines that are only used on the home page.

Specifically
HOME_PAGE_META_DESCRIPTION
HOME_PAGE_TITLE
and HOME_PAGE_META_KEYWORDS

So I don't need to test what's happening for your client.. I provided examples as to what is happening.. I kinda already have a good grasp of the native meta tagging feature.. It is lacking..

So you agree with my findings that having the *product name* as the leading part of the page titles in the product related pages make a significant improvement to the SEO rankings when people do a search for that particular product, and that the format of
"Product Name : ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle" is a far better option than
"ExampleSocialSite, a place for people to meet and mingle. : Product Name" ?

If so, then this particular 'argument' revolves around the fact that you were discussing the home page, and I was/am discussing the product/category pages.

If you *don't* agree with my findings, then I urge you as a friend to please at least *try* the changes I've mentioned, and if you *don't* get the same observable results I'll
1) Be *very* surprised
2) I'll need to take some closer observations to figure out why the changes I made had such a noticeable impact in rankings but didn't have the same impact with your tests.

Cheers
RodG

[jcrewe]

While all of the bantering has provided information/opinions on both sides of the coin, I have to very respectfully say that it's not all that helpful to my original question I think my original post got forgotten in the bantering..lol! I am really just trying to figure out what I can do to rank higher. I'm very happy to hear that Google is now focusing on Product Titles, as most of my Product Titles state what the item is, so hopefully this will automatically make me rank better. I'll skip the URL renaming module as I was really only considering it if it would help with ranking, which it doesn't. With regards to meta tags, I added a photo in a previous comment above.....is this right or wrong how I have entered information? The keywords I have entered ARE relevant to what I sell, however, not all the keywords are listed elsewhere on my site or on a product page....will that make me rank lower?

Thanks :)

[RodG]

While all of the bantering has provided information/opinions on both sides of the coin, I have to very respectfully say that it's not all that helpful to my original question

Sorry about that. My original advice in post#2 still stands true.

I think my original post got forgotten in the bantering..lol!

This happens almost every time in a discussion about 'SEO'. There's too many experts and we are *all* right in what we say, even though our *opinions* may differ.

I am really just trying to figure out what I can do to rank higher.

Content, content and more content. Everything else is just 'icing on the cake'

I'm very happy to hear that Google is now focusing on Product Titles, as most of my Product Titles state what the item is, so hopefully this will automatically make me rank better.

This has been my recent experience.

I'll skip the URL renaming module as I was really only considering it if it would help with ranking, which it doesn't.

With respect to DivaVocals, I think this is a smart move. I am of the understanding that a future zencart version will have support for 'Friendly URL's' out of the box, and I suspect that when they do so it will be based on one of the existing 3rd party modules, which will be great for those people already using that particular module, but I suspect it will cause a bit of an update nightmare for those that have opted to use a different module.

With regards to meta tags, I added a photo in a previous comment above.....is this right or wrong how I have entered information?

I need to be a little careful here because I'd like to avoid another of the inevitable debates that could come of it, so I'll start out by saying, no, that isn't the way *I* would being this.

The keywords I have entered ARE relevant to what I sell, however, not all the keywords are listed elsewhere on my site or on a product page....will that make me rank lower?

In my opinion, and from all I have read on the subject, if these keywords are NOT on the page(s) where these keywords are used, then Yes, you do *run the risk* of being penalised. This isn't to say you *will* be penalised, because I do think there is a little bit more to it than that, for example, the number of keywords that don't have a match in the page content. My advise is to 'play it safe' and only include keywords that do exist on the page.

My other comment about the 'keywords' that you have used, is also a very contentious issue, and that is, many of your 'keywords' are in fact 'key phrases'. Where you have "Personalised chocolate bars" (which is a phrase) I would have
"Personalised", "chocolate", "bars" (which are 'words' and not 'phrases')

My logic here is that if someone searches for "chocolate bars' there won't be an *exact* match with *your* 'keywords', but with my approach, the same search query will find two matches. One for chocolate and one for bars.

Whether the partial match based on two of the three words will 'outrank' my two exact matches or not is something that is going to be difficult, if not impossible to prove. I like to think that two exacts will trump one partial though.

As for the 'description' section from your screenshots, I'm not too happy about this either. It doesn't *read* like a description to me. It looks a lot like a variation of your 'keywords'. I would be changing this so that it actually *describes* the content of the page.. For example
"We sell personalised chocolate bars for Birthdays, Weddings, Birthday announcements and more".

Your current 'description' has obviously been written for a Search Engine rather than *people*.

As I stated in my 1st reply "At the end of the day, the site needs to be written and designed for a good *people* experience, and never ever designed simply to get good SE rankings".

That's it. I've nothing more to add.

Cheers
RodG

[DivaVocals]

**delete**