Keyword optimization
There
are two meanings of the phrase “keyword optimiztion”. The original meaning
dealt with the use of the keyword metatag. An additional newer meaning is the
choice of which keywords that your paid ads appear with.
If
you pay for ads, it makes sense to have those ads placed on keywords that are
most likely to match your website. That’s kind of a no-brainer. And you
probably don’t need to pay an expert to figure out what that kind of keyword
should be.
The
other kind, setting your metatags is almost a waste of time.
In
the early days of search engines the keyword metatag was intended to let the
search engines know which topics best fit your web page, on the assumption that
humans would do a better job of figuring this out than machines, particularly
for keywords that don’t appear in the actual text of the web page or for common
misspellings.
In
practice, spammers quickly took advantage of the system, overwhelming the most
popular keyword searches with completely irrelevant web pages.
As
a result, this method became meaningless. No major search engine gives much
weight (and usually zero weight) to the keyword metatag. Many of the search
engines even count this against your web page, especially if you have a
lot of keywords.
Web
companies that promise results from key word optimization know that they are
lying to their customers.
NOTE:
I do know of several honest web designers who offer this service on request
simply because it is one of the first things that businesses ask for and it is
easier to just go ahead and perform the useless service than to scare away a
customer by telling them that are stupid.