SEO Tip: Don’t Bother with Meta Keywords

Connecting the Internet Graphic

Here’s a tip from , author of the WordPress SEO Plugin we use on several WordPress with SiteControl sites.  Back in the early days of search engines to get ranked you added keywords to each page to tell the search engine what your website was about.  As you can imagine, this quickly got abused and search engines began ignoring them, since they were essentially useless.

None of the big three search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo!) put much weight behind the meta keywords, so in Joost’s opinion, and Web Services, it’s just not worth the time to fill out, and then manage.  Instead, spend your time writing good content.  Good content that talks about the search terms you want to be found for.  If you want your website to be indexed for “best loan rates in Kalamazoo, Michigan” then you need to have a story (not an image banner) explaining that you do in fact have the best loan rates in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  If you don’t write it in your content, the search engines won’t know it, and can’t point people to your site.

Read the article on Joost’s site.

For more tips from Google on getting your site indexed, check out the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

WordPress sites top 50 million

WordPress

Over the past weekend WordPress passed the 50 million mark.  That’s right, there are over 50 million websites on the web that are powered by WordPress.  That’s nearly 20% of the entire web.  WordPress powers such heavyweight sites like TechCrunchTEDCNN, and the National Football League, and also many of your Credit Union websites.

Rest assured your are in good company, and CU*Answers Web Services is right here with you.

Holiday Hours

Web Services will be closed on Monday, July 5, 2010 in observance of Independence Day.  Our regular hours will resume on Tuesday, July 6th, 9 AM to 6 PM Eastern Time.  Web updates submitted on Friday July 2nd will be published on Tuesday July 6th or Wednesday July 7th.

In the event of an emergency, please follow standard CU*Answers after hours contact procedures.

Have a happy and safe holiday!

New Site for CU*South

Last week, right before the CU*Answers Leadership Conference, Web Services launched a new website for our cuasterisk.com partner CU*South.  This new site takes a radical break from their previous website strategy in that with this new site they are going to manage their own content locally.  Because this new site is built using WordPress, they can simply log in and publish new content as needed.

The entire site is dynamically controlled through the WordPress dashboard including some of the newer features of WordPress 3.0 such as custom background images.

Reg E and Opt In

We’re getting several emails about adding Opt-In forms to Credit Union websites in response to Reg E.   At this time, we are asking everyone to sit tight. We suggest you read up on what CU*Answers and our partners, such as Xtend, are preparing in response to Reg E. There is information online in the CU*Answers Kitchen.  Additional information is presented in a recorded webinar at Ondemand.cuanswers.com.  We are also preparing marketing collateral for your to use in statements, e-statements, e-Info, in your lobby and on your website. In the end, members will be able to opt-in via It’s Me 247 Online Banking. We would expect more information to be announced at Leadership Conference. We know this is a large and pressing concern for Credit Unions. But rest assured, CU*Answers is working on it and will have a solution well within the time frame.

Update:  Some marketing collaterals have been published.

Please feel free to contact us with any further questions.

WordPress with SiteControl Webconference Recording

WordPress

Good news for those of you who missed our two online training presentations last month. We have made the webex recordings available for streaming for your viewing pleasure. We cover a variety of topics pertaining to the way we use WordPress as a CMS.  Let us know what you think in the comments.