Looking for a little help with SEO Analysis

[misstina]

Hi! I'm pretty new to blogging and I'm wondering if anyone can help me with a SEO analysis question. When I run an analysis I get this big red message that I have 97 words in my keyword tag and that this is not SEO friendly. The suggestion is to adjust my meta keyword tag so there's only one instance of my keyword.

I also get a red flag that I have no meta description tag, that no description tag was detected on my page.

I'm not sure how to fix these things and how urgent it is to fix them. Do these red flags have to do with how I have my All In One SEO plugin set up?

Thanks for any help that you can give me,

Tina

[TMichaelRogers]

Here's my 2 cents. Don't worry about the meta keyword tag. Its not used by google or yahoo any more for indexing. I can't say for Bing. Concentrate on your title tag, great body content, and quality inbound links.

The description tag is important in that it is what users see under your link in the SERPS. Make sure your descriptions are short, concise and will entice a user to click.

I don't use All In One so I can't say on that account.

[lindastacy]

You can set your home page description in the main setting page for All in One SEO (in your dashboard click on "All in One SEO" under the "Settings" tab. Individual post and page descriptions are set when you add or edit them.

And even though the big guys don't use the keyword tag, if you're going to use it I'd make it SEO friendly. It may help with some other smaller search engines (or hurt if it's not optimized). You set keywords in the same places you set descriptions.

[jkgourmet]

Hi! I'm pretty new to blogging and I'm wondering if anyone can help me with a SEO analysis question. When I run an analysis I get this big red message that I have 97 words in my keyword tag and that this is not SEO friendly. The suggestion is to adjust my meta keyword tag so there's only one instance of my keyword.


Tina

Do you have comma's between the keywords and/or keyword phrases? If not, maybe that's why it's showing it as "97 words."

[AlexNewell]

It would help a lot if you could put a link to the page you have analyzed. Also what SEO software is it?

[cim85]

Hi there Tina,

I could be wrong here because I do not know the SEO analysis software you are using - nevertheless here is my 3 cents worth.

Choosing keywords is not a guessing quest and essentially you need to make wise choices. Popular and competitive keywords provide the building blocks of the SEO process. You need to do your homework to find the most relevant and popular keywords that people are actually searching for, which should guide them to services etc contained in your website. I am wondering whether your SEO analysis software is investigating your keyword strategy suggesting that you improve your key words/phrases?

Mark

[misstina]

Thanks everyone...I'm working on the http://www.toddlerrideontoys.net/ site. I have a list of very relevant keywords that I'm working with. I've used this tool along with a few others and they all produce the same results...http://www.instantposition.com/seotest.php

I already set a home page description on the setting options page that is very keyword relevant. I set that up before I did any posting.

I also have home keywords in place with a "," in between each one.

Would one of these settings make a difference?

1. Use Categories for META keywords:
Check this if you want your categories for a given post used as the META keywords for this post (in addition to any keywords and tags you specify on the post edit page).

2. Use Tags for META keywords:
Check this if you want your tags for a given post used as the META keywords for this post (in addition to any keywords you specify on the post edit page).

The default is set at option #2.

[AlexNewell]

Lovely blog misstina!

but your title tag needs changing!

You have "| Childrens Ride On Toys For Sale" at present

Two thing need attention here

(1) the | at the start needs deleting
(2) the words you put in your title tag are the most important in your whole blog and you need a major keyword in there. I checked on the phrase Childrens Ride On Toys For Sale and could not find anyone searching for this phrase

All The Best

Alex

[misstina]

Thanks Alex!

I noticed the "|" in the title but for the life of me can't figure out how to get rid of it. Do I do that somehow from my Dashboard or do I have to go into the html code somewhere?

[AlexNewell]

Try logging in to your blog and then go to =>settings => General

:-)

[misstina]

I did that and things look just fine. No "|" there anywhere. It's a little perplexing...

[misstina]

I've even changed the title and the title saved properly but that darn "|" is still there.

[cim85]

Do you know how to alter the HTML coding for your blog? If so, try and edit the "|" from the code. Very frustrating I must say!

Mark

[misstina]

No I don't know how to edit the code. If I view the page source in Firefox I can see that it's there in the title tag but I don't know how to get to it in my Dashboard.

[angienewton]

It's not under settings in your blog title box? Maybe copy the title, delete it from the box and past again then save to see if that works.

[cim85]

Be very careful with editing your HTML code!!!! Ignore at your own peril.

In your blog's dashboard there should be a button entitled "Edit HTML" or similar. It should be listed under the "layout" or "customize" tabs. If you can find this edit button, you may be able to delete the darn "|" directly from the code. If you have cpanel access to your blogsite you can also edit via that program. I would not perform any HTML editing until you obtain further advice from this thread. Just tell me if you can find the HTML editing facility.

Mark

[misstina]

I deleted the title in the general settings, put it back, and saved and still the same problem....

I can't seem to find a layout or customize tab in my Dashboard. I can access my cpanel if that will work....

thanks all for the help!

[misstina]

After much more browsing....if I go into my Wordpress Dashboard and into the theme editor I only see where I can edit the Stylesheet. I don't see anywhere to edit the HTML. I do see in my cPanel where I can go into the File Manager and I'm assuming I can edit the HTML there. But how do I know where to find the title tag?

[Henrik Flensborg]

Hey Tina,

Try this:

Go to Settings->All In One SEO

Fill in the "Home Title" field.

Save your settings and look at your homepage.

AIOSEO is responsible for the | separator, and it works nicely for separate Pages, Posts, Tag and Category pages, but the Homepage, by definition, doesn't have a Pagename, Postname, Tagname or Categoryname so AIOSEO just leaves the space in front of | blank.

[cim85]

If Henrik's advice doesnt work, access file manager via cpanel and navigate to the public_HTML folder. Open the file entitled index.html using one of the the edit buttons towards the top of the page and you can edit the code in your title page. There is a preview function that will allow you to view your webpage before it goes live onto the web. Make sure you save your changes before exiting the cpanel file manager. Your edited page will go live to the web. Any hassles let me know. Sorry for delayed response as I had to travel into the city today!

Mark

[Henrik Flensborg]

If Henrik's advice doesnt work, access file manager via cpanel and navigate to the public_HTML folder. Open the file entitled index.html using one of the the edit buttons towards the top of the page and you can edit the code in your title page. There is a preview function that will allow you to view your webpage before it goes live onto the web. Make sure you save your changes before exiting the cpanel file manager. Your edited page will go live to the web. Any hassles let me know. Sorry for delayed response as I had to travel into the city today!

Mark

There won't be an index.html file there (at least not an active one) since it's a WP blog.

Whatever you do, don't change that file directly at the OS level.

I downloaded and checked the theme Tina is using and header.php doesn't have any '|' hardcoded, so it must come from plugins or WP itself. And since AIOSEO use | by default, then I put all my eggs in that basket.

[AlexNewell]

Good clear explanation Henrik.

Most issues I find in WordPress involve plugins.

The whole point of using WP is to avoid coding and hosting hassles and advising a beginner to use file manager and editing php ignores the difficulties and confusion we go through at the beginning.

Hopefully a few tweaks to the settings page of the plugin and this will be sorted out

[misstina]

Wow, this is really becoming a struggle. I've done what Henrik suggested several times but no change. I've gone into my cPanel but I can't find the index.html file. There's an index.php file only. I've looked in every file for this site and can't find it anywhere. Any other suggestions?

[Henrik Flensborg]

Wow, this is really becoming a struggle. I've done what Henrik suggested several times but no change. I've gone into my cPanel but I can't find the index.html file. There's an index.php file only. I've looked in every file for this site and can't find it anywhere. Any other suggestions?

Hmmm, weird - are you using other SEO-related plugins?

If you're using any Cache plugins then refreshing/clearing the cache might do the trick.

Forget the index.html file - it's not used by WP.

If you still have the problem in an hour, then drop me a pm with the names of all your plugins and I'll set up a blog with the same setup and see if I can figure it out.

I assume that all plugins are up-to-date and the same applies to the Theme itself.

[Henrik Flensborg]

I found the culprit.

Under Settings->Reading you have the choice between your latest posts or a static page on your frontpage.

It was set to static page, but no static pages were selected from the drop-down boxes.

Therefore WP decided to show your posts on the frontpage, but AIOSEO read the setting and figured you were using a static page - and treated it like a Page [%page_title% | %blog_title%]. And since the %page_title% variable isn't set on the homepage (because it's not a Page), then it just showed " | Ride On Toys For Sale"

[cim85]

I will leave it with you Tina as it appears I have been chopped off at the knees by a couple of others on this thread, good luck with your problem. I was only trying to assist you.

[Henrik Flensborg]

I will leave it with you Tina as it appears I have been chopped off at the knees by a couple of others on this thread, good luck with your problem. I was only trying to assist you.

One of the great things about this forum is that there are so many people willing to share their opinions and give advice to posted questions.

I'm pretty sure that Tina appreciate all the feedback she has gotten from all of us.


There really is no reason for you to feel that you've been chopped off at the knees by me; it has never been and will never be my intention to chop anybody off - I'm only here to share my views.

[AlexNewell]

Henrik I'm gonna call you Sherlock from now on!

Very good bit of detective work there buddy!

:-)

[misstina]

I'd really like to thank all of you for your time and help with this issue. I'd also like to apologize for taking so long to post this. I had a family member undergo some emergency surgery that's kept me a little unfocused for the last several days. I appreciate all your help and hope no one feels slighted in any way.

[AlexNewell]

Family comes first misstina.

All of us have dramas and problems in the "real world" from time to time and emergency surgery sounds real serious

Your doing well if that only left you feeling a little unfocused

Nobody here is going to feel slighted

[Henrik Flensborg]

yeah, family always comes first.

Besides, most of us tend to get engaged in our projects which results in time away from the forum, so we're all pretty used to this on/off use of the forum.