Quick Guide to Meta Keywords Best Practices

While some tags are essential for website SEO, others have little to no impact on search engine rankings. But what are meta keywords? Do they matter for SEO? And why should you be learning meta keywords best practices?

Having meta keywords as part of your website can help improve its visibility in search engine results. By including relevant words and phrases in the HTML code, you are helping both users and search engines find what they’re looking for.

Here’s a quick guide to exploring various best practices for using meta keywords.

What Are Meta Keywords?

Meta Keywords are HTML meta tags used to describe the contents of a webpage. It helps search engines identify what that page is about and the keywords associated with the page.

Meta keywords act as a type of metadata, helping web crawlers better understand the purpose and content of any given website. These meta tags are present on every web page but are only visible in the HTML code of the page.

Search engines such as Google and Bing claimed they are not using this meta tag, but others may still be using it.

Are Meta Keywords Important for SEO?

Meta keywords are not important for SEO. Google stopped using meta keywords for rankings in 2009 and Bing announced that they used the tag as a spam signal in 2011. This means that if your meta keywords are overly stuffed with irrelevant keywords, this could work against you in Bing.

In modern SEO practices, the meta keyword tag is disregarded, and instead, other methods like website content optimization are used to help boost SEO. Although it’s not useful for SEO, some internal website search systems still utilize meta keyword tags.

Should You Still Use Meta Keywords?

Google and other search engines may have devalued the impact of meta keywords due to their abuse by some site owners and marketers. Developers would stuff high-volume keywords into the code to rank low-quality pages for those specific terms. This greatly reduced the relevancy and value of the search results.

But there is still some uncertainty regarding whether meta keywords are completely removed from the algorithm. This lack of transparency in search engines’ ranking algorithms is likely meant to discourage people from manipulating the system.

It is possible that certain search engines still use them to factor into their organic rankings. So it can be beneficial to include meta keywords only if you run paid campaigns on these same search engines.

Meta Keywords Best Practice

The major search engines don’t consider meta keyword tags in search algorithms to determine your website’s search rankings.

The meta keywords HTML code looks like this:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”importance of meta keywords, meta keywords importance, important meta tags for seo”>

When it comes to meta keywords best practices, the consensus is that they don’t actually help with SEO rankings. So, removing the meta keyword tags from any page is often recommended because they have little impact on SEO. Your search engine rankings may suffer if your meta keyword tags are overloaded with terms.

However, these tags still have value in WordPress due to their function of providing additional indexed pages and assisting Google in accurately ranking pages.

Also, they can be used to improve the URL format of your website by adding more relevant keywords. It is essential to maintain best practices when using meta keywords. You should only include them on applicable pages and ensure they are not overstuffed with words or phrases.

Conclusion

Meta keywords are no longer a major factor in SEO. But they can still be helpful for WordPress sites. If you choose to use them, make sure that your meta keywords accurately reflect the content of your page.

You must not overstuff them with too many words. This guide explores the various aspects of meta keywords to help you understand their role in your website SEO.