[Nfb-web] Visually Impaired in Search

Tue Dec 5 01:02:43 CST 2006

Hello again. Here's one of many articles backing what I said before about 
the death of the meta keywords tag. This one's actually from a few years 
back:

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165131

None of the search engines bother anymore, so it's a waste of time. 
Actually, we do have meta keywords on the Michigan site including visually 
impaired and visually impaired Michigan, but a search for visually impaired 
Michigan doesn't even put us in the top 30 for Google, if at all. I hate to 
overemphasize this, and I know it's what we've all been taught, but things 
have changed. I thought the same thing about the importance of keywords for 
a long time as well. Try doing a Google search for your site using words 
that are in your meta keywords block but not on your page in another area 
and see if it shows up.

The article does note that the meta description tag may still be of some 
use, though. I'm going to try and find some more modern search engine 
information and see if that tag is still being used. But in general, I would 
say that if you can get your important words in the title and repeated a few 
times throughout your page, that that is your best bet. When I made the 
change from NFB of Michigan to National Federation of the Blind of Michigan 
across the titles for every page on our site, the Kalamazoo page now shows 
up above the Kalamazoo Council page in a Google search for "Kalamazoo 
blind". This despite the Council's page being on a dedicated domain and 
having a longer web presence. It's not always that easy, though, i.e. 
Detroit blind still doesn't get us in the top 10. Working on that one.
The underlying trick is to create pages that will draw people into your 
website. For my business website, I have dozens of knowledge base articles 
about my products that are all picked up by Google. So posting articles 
about blindness with links back to the state's website can certainly help as 
well.

I know some of this stuff seems nitpicky, but considering that search 
engines are one of the primary drivers for traffic, it becomes important to 
taylor sites so that they get picked up by the major engines.

Hope this helps. I certainly don't know everything, and I could be wrong, 
but just sharing what I've learned.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Donahue" <pdonahue1 at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 1:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] Visually Impaired in Search

> Hello Dave and listers,
>
> They go in the Head part of a Web page; usually the site's home page. 
> Here's
> an example:
>
> <html>
>
> <head>
> <title>My Example</title>
> <meta keywords="Example, my example, your great example,examples, samples,
> sample, everyone's example>
> </head>
>
> <body>
>
> </body>
> </html>
>
> Peter Donahue
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
> To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 12:31 AM
> Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] Visually Impaired in Search
>
>
> Isn't there a way to put meta tags at the top, they aren't shown but
> are found by search engines.
>
> Dave
>
> At 02:29 PM 12/4/2006, you wrote:
>>I've been working to maximize our exposure on search engines, but
>>have run into a slight quandry. Generally, we like to say that
>>there's no difference between the blind and visually impaired. But
>>for this reason, when I type in visually impaired michigan into
>>Google, the NFB of Michigan doesn't show up. I know we're a relevant
>>search result for this search, but I need to find a way for us to
>>show up without putting visually impaired all over the page. Anyone
>>have any ideas?
>>
>>Incidentally, our chapter pages formerly said NFB of Michigan, and
>>after looking at them a bit, I realized that the word blind didn't
>>appear on the page at all. After fixing this, we now show up near
>>the top for searches like "Kalamazoo blind", "Lansing blind", and
>>"Grand Rapids blind". We now have the phrase "National Federation of
>>the Blind of Michigan" in the title bar for every page. Just goes to
>>show how important some simple modifications to a website can be.
>>
>>J.J. Meddaugh
>>Webmaster, NFB of Michigan
>>President, Kalamazoo chapter
>>Vice-president, Michigan Association of Blind Students
>>
>>
>>
>>J.J.
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Nfb-web mailing list
>>Nfb-web at nfbnet.org
>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-web
>
>
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