I teach a course entitled “Social Media and Search Engine Marketing” and would value your input to a few recent question that have surfaced:
I. Title Tags
To me it seems as if there is some ambiguity in the use of the word “title” in SEO within WordPress.
In a WordPress site when you place a title into the Initial Post/Page Title Area it shows up in HTML as <title> xxxxxxx </title>, and lets refer to this as the “Internal Title Tag”
As part of the Genesis SEO Settings there is of course the area to specify “Custom Document Title” that shows up as the Title in the Search Engine returned entry and as HTML as <meta property = ‘og: title content= ‘xxxxx …’/> which I will refer to as the “Meta Title Tag”
Please address the following issues if possible:
1.. As far as SEO goes, I would assume that Meta Title Tag is of much higher importance ? Is the Internal Title Tag of some/any importance in SEO ?
2.. WordPress inserts the Internal Title Tag at the top of the post/page. If the Internal Title Tag has little SEO value; why not leave it blank and use a H1 as the first line of post/page which then allows article to have relevant title with SEO value as H1. Note that if you use Internal Tile Tag and H1 as first post/page title then the viewer will see a duplicate line.
II. Quantifying Site Links and What Is Really Picked Up Intentionally or Non-intentionally
There are of course SEO tools like SEOMoz and LinkDiagnotices, and Yahoo/Google by putting into search link:http://www.sitename. However I find major discrepancies in the figures shown.
1.. Do the Search Engines like Yahoo and Google intentionally not provide accurate figures as to make it difficult to assess your SEO/PR strength as to keep their algorithms unclear/protected?
2.. At one point an SEO consultant had be create legitimate/non-legitimate ?(Depends on your position) back links from such high PR sites as: Feed.informer, Empirisoft, Tarentino, Mountwashington, Craigs.list, etc. When I refer to these link tools I don’t see any of these showing up? Are the Search Engines smart enough to only include back links that are within the “content topic” of your website/blog ?
III. Do Not Follow/Akismet Blockage
You are trying to build quality links to your site by responding in a quality way to various sites within your content topic community. It is more productive when a site will not only publish your comment, but you also stand to get a back link by providing your website URL.
What is the easiest way to find out if a website has “No Follow/Do Not Follow” and/or Akismet Plugin that will either block entire comment or remove website reference ? I have gone to SEOMoz but I would think there is an easier way.
