Meta tags not dead? Is this keeping me hidden?

[Berner]

I am not sure if it makes a difference, but when I called Google Places on Monday to edit my business address, I asked if the support person could see any penalties against my site. They said no. I asked because of my berneseoftherockies.com website is non existent. Now I have been working with removing 10 foreign backlinks, so not sure if even one bad backlink can cause a site to not come up, thus causing a penalty. I mean for bernese mountain dogs in Colorado is a small niche, but I am no where to be found.

But they did say that they did not see any meta tags.

I responded with I was under the impression that Google does not use meta tags. This rep stated, they would use them.

So did they give me some secret?

When I Googled my main keyword, I noticed out of the top 10 listings, they all used meta keywords, except for one.

Could this be keeping me out of the rankings?

Thank you for your toughts

[Berner]

Thank you Philip

Thank you so much. I am quite lost. I watched videos and created my pages based on these videos from a seo company. They preach that you must do like site.com/city-keyword-keyword/target keyword.

So it is hard to know who is right and who is wrong.

I added my state at the beginning thinking that it will help local seo but is this not the right way to think?

Thank you. I have a lot to do

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

1. Clean up (remove) those spammy backlinks.  This is VERY important.

2. Optimize your title tags across the entire site.  Use this tool to see what your title tags will look like on Google.  Your homepage title tag says "Colorado bernese mountain dogs | puppies | breeders Colorado" - I would put something more along the lines of "Bernese of the Rockies: Colorado Bernese Mountain Dog Breeders".  My suggestion/example is slightly longer than what Google will display but since it is your homepage, you want to make sure your brand name is front and center.  For the interior pages you wouldn't necessarily need to do that.  For the puppies page, instead of "Colorado bernese mountain dog puppies | For Sale Colorado" - I would do something like "Adorable Bernese Mountain Dog Puppies For Sale in Colorado".  My example barely fits within what Google will display, it says exactly what the page is about, it's clean, AND it has something a little enticing ('adorable').

3. Fix up your URLs.  They are very "keyword stuffy" right now.  Your "Education & Tips" page's URL is http://www.berneseoftherockies.com/colorado-bernese-mountain-dogs/ -- It should be something as simple as http://www.berneseoftherockies.com/education or http://www.berneseoftherockies.com/education-and-tips.  Editing your URLs will mean 301 redirects are necessary.  You're using Wordpress and there's a plugin called "Redirection" that works.  I still prefer just editing the htaccess file manually.  Some quick Google searches can tell you everything you need to know about 301 redirects.

Your overall site isn't that bad.  You're using H1s and H2s.  You have a lot of content.  You're inserting images and some video.  Do those 3 things above and you'll be much better off.  Of course there's more you can do, but check out the Learn SEO link I shared in my previous comment.  I can't go on forever

[Berner]

Thank you for the help.

I truly appreciate it. I am lost as I got those bad backlinks from hiring a company in 2011 to help me build and start a website presence.

But we really dropped off the map. So this time around I wanted to do it myself.

I know I have a couple of this pages, and maybe I use the word Bernese too much, but it is the name of my dogs and my company.

If I may poke, what area in specific would you say I should work on? I ask because you are a professional, and I am not.

Thank you

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

Hey Chris,

Unfortunately, Google didn't give you any secrets

"Meta tags" is broad.  It doesn't specify what the attribute is.  You can have meta keywords, meta descriptions, meta charsets, etc.  You can read a bit more about exactly what a "meta tag" is defined as here.

As for the meta keywords tag, Google does not use it at all.  Without looking up the exact date, I believe Google announced this in 2008 or 2009.  It's been a longggg time since the meta keywords tag was used as a ranking factor.  A couple years later, Google announced that the meta description tag was no longer used as a ranking factor.  HOWEVER, unlike the meta keywords tag, Google does still look at the meta description tag.  It just isn't taken into consideration while ranking pages.  Meta descriptions are important for click through rates, but they won't give you a rankings boost.

Why aren't you ranking for anything?  Well, at least 90% of the backlinks are spammy.  I only took a very brief look, but I saw a bunch of directory links and not much else (maybe nothing else).  If you don't have a manual penalty yet, you might be due for one.  I would highly suggest getting those spammy backlinks removed.

Assuming all the content on your site is original, it isn't a terrible site.  It could use work in some areas, but then again, that can be said for 99.99% of websites.  If you really want to learn about what you should be doing to improve your rankings, take a look at the Learn SEO section of Moz.