SEO Tycoon

**jim.thornton** · 04:22 PM

Okay... As mentioned before, I run a mortgage site: www.moneytime.ca

I have a page dedicated to Cash Back Mortgages. Now, I have used the overture keyword total and I have noticed that just as many people (almost) type in cashback (one word) as they do with Cash Back (two words).

I am wondering how the search engines interpret this... For example, in my META tags (I realize they are not the most important thing). I have put:

Code:

   <META NAME="description" CONTENT="Cash back mortgages in Ontario. Canada's largest banks Scotiabank, TD Canada Trust, CIBC, BMO, Bank of Montreal offer Cash Back mortgages.  Cashback mortgage loan refinance.">
   <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="cash back, cash back mortgage, cash back mortgages">
   <META name="robots" content="index,follow">
   <META NAME="author" CONTENT="Moneytime.ca Inc.">

Now.. My page is optimized for high density of those phrases. BUT, if someone was to type in:

Cashback Mortgage

Would the search engine be able to figure out that we are talking about the same thing??

Please let me know if this isn't clear.

**kline11** · 04:30 PM

They interpret "cash back" as two words and "cashback" as one, so I would target both. You also have "cash back" in your keywords meta tag 3 times, regardless of "mortgage" and "mortgages". This can be viewed as spam. Because most SE's do not even consider the keywords meta tag credible, It can only hurt, not help if you spam it.

**vangogh** · 03-26-2006, 04:36 PM

Agreed. Two separate keywords. About your metatags you don't need the one for author or robots at all. The index follow is the default so you're not adding anything new and it's not going to bring search spiders back any sooner or get them to do something they weren't already going to do.

The meta author I assume is becuase it's your site, but we already know that by going to the domain. It's just one more line of code that doesn't really add anything.

Meta keywords is kind of meaningless at this point in time. They were abused far to often to make them useful and I doubt they'll ever be useful again. No reason to take them out, but don't spend much time worrying about them. Only a few minor search engines will even look at them so don't expect much results from them.

When you say you have a high keyword density how are you talking? Keyword density is another of those seo things that's a lot less important than most people think. Sure it's good to use your keywords on the page, but it's not worth spending time looking for that perfect density. And if you have too many keywords on the page you run the risk of being flagged as spam.

**jim.thornton** · 03-26-2006, 05:58 PM

WOW... I never thought that this was s-o-o-o in depth. The keywords density I was referring to is the fact that I have used the key word phrases I spoke of many times throughout the content. I used the keyword density tool at SEO Chat to verify.

It seems like what I am doing is actually going to hurt me more than help me.

If you wouldn't mind, I will provide 3 links. Could you click them, review the pages and let me know if I have over done it or if I am on the right track?? This would be much appreciated.

http://www.moneytime.ca/cashback

http://www.moneytime.ca/consolidation

http://www.moneytime.ca/calculators

All/Any help is much appreciated.

**vangogh** · 03-27-2006, 02:19 AM

I checked all 3 pages and I don't think you're in any danger of being spammy. Using the same tools you used it looks like on 2 word phrases your highest keyword density was maybe 4%. For people that do think keyword density is important you're in the right ballpark.

One thing I would recommend is not using your phone number in your page titles. I think it's unlilkey that people will call until they land on your pages so the number would be better to just be on the site. Also it's a good idea to get your keywords closer to the front in your page titles.

**jim.thornton** · 03-27-2006, 10:28 AM

Okay...

1. Thank you for your input, and taking the time to look at my site.

2. I was putting the phone number in the title bar because I thought it might be beneficial in that it was just one more place for them to get it from. However, if you don't feel that it helps at all, I'll take it out (you are much more experienced at this than I).

3. Could you please expand a little more on bringing the keywords to the top of the page. I made sure that a keyword phrase was inside of the <h1></h1> tags as I have read that it is important. I have also read that by placing a keyword/phrase inside of the <b></b> or <i></i> tags also helps grab importance, so I did that too. If you have any suggestions on "how to" get my keywords closer to the top, I would appreciate your input.

Thanks again.

**vangogh** · 03-27-2006, 08:09 PM

What I meant by bring the kwywords more to the front was in the title so between the <title></title> The phone number is first now. I think your pages look fine.

It's really up to you about leaving the phone number in. My thought though is that people won't call it just from seeing your link in a search engine. I think they'd always click through to the site first. I'm also surprised by how few people ever even look at the title as it shows in the top bar of the browser.

To me when I see it in a link it looks spammy and I tend not to click on those links. That might just be me though. A lot of site's do add their phone number to the title so maybe it does work. To help with seo I would just move it to the end of the <title> instead of at the beginning.

**jim.thornton** · 03-28-2006, 12:23 AM

Great! Thanks for the input, it was very educational.

**vangogh** · 03-28-2006, 06:53 PM

Glad to have helped.

**Cro** · 03-30-2006, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zincoxide

Great! Thanks for the input, it was very educational.

me too, I had never thought more about this