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I've a slight confession to make that I've not been completing these sections on a large number of my posts and was wondering if this is the reason for the drop in the SERPS.
Can I go back and add these fields in? will it help increase the rankings of the site overall or is it too late?
It's always difficult to pinpoint a particular reason for a drop in the serps, but I believe that adding a good meta description and seo title would definitely contribute to the ranking process. Also, I don't think it would be too late to add them in now or change them because google is continuously reevaluating sites and updating the serps.
Yes you could go back and add them in - and google would note them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Voids
Whether they would make much difference is a point of much discussion ...
And most seasoned SEO snakeoil salesmen say it makes little difference ...
But I think that what we are trying to do is tell Google (and other SEs) exactly what it is that our site (and each page) is about.
And the TITLE and META are prime place designed to do just that - so I always try and fill them out.
yes, you can add and change them whenever you wish. I often experiment and try different metas and titles to see if it helps with rankings. Just because you don't have them filled out doesn't mean you won't rank though. It's always best practice to have them filled otherwise Google may come up with some alternatives that will not help with your click thru rates
I guess the best way to find out how it impacts you would be trial it on a few pages and note any changes to your positions on the SERPs - personally I think that it still has some bearing on positions although nothing like it used to do.
CTR from serps is likely a factor Google are considering right now and not having these tags is likely going to lower your CTR from serps. Why? Because when people see your descriptions especially, they won't be drawing the user in to your page.
Granted some of this stuff is dynamically generated by google now to fit the searcher but I still believe it makes a difference.
It's my feeling that simply using these to include multiple keywords and attain a ranking boost by doing so is less effective than it used to be, much less.
I would add them sitewide and then monitor difference between before and after. Might take 3-6 months to see a true reflection on results.
Small beer I know, however bing seems to put far more credence into titles/meta than google from what I can see.