COMMENTS
Agree with most of this.
Not sure about no.2, meta descriptions though. Don't obsess over them, but do bear in mind the fact that search engines can use meta descriptions as the "advert" for your page - the snippet which appears under your listing in the SERPs (search results page).
So if you have a page ranking well for an important term but the meta description isn't selling the page for you because it is being pulled from the first paragraph of your copy which is a clever story about a cute bunny to lead people into the meat of the article, you need to do a good job of writing your meta description.
Find out more about this over at SEOMoz here: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/meta-description
Sounds like good advice, but IMHO, don't take cooling the meta tag advice too far.
What about "spending time leaving comments"? Most comments are inane & @ worst spewed bile.
I agree with you on most of this but not totally on #2.
As Simon Mason mentions, the meta description is very important for call to action within the organic SERPS.
So there is no harm at all in spending a few minutes adding catchy descriptions with good call to action to your most important landing pages.
I agree with #3 completely. I hate it when people say to me what can you do for me. I have these 100 domains and these 50 websites!!!!
Like you say, forget the tweaky little things and work on building an awesome resource and community that people will want to participate in and share with friends.
Could not agree with you more on #1! Why fix something that isn't broken?
If I may, I'd like to add another couple of "don't matter" items: (1) Blogs and social media exercises don't help if they don't bring value added to the customer/prospect. (2) Web sites, metaheaders, and social media don't help a company if they do not consistently support a strategy, and the strategy must be supported by reality - not by companies playing a PR game.
I'll parrot what others have said re #2 - search is still important and having a well crafted snippet appear under your link on a serp could result in the click you need.
Agree with Rob Griggs too - content quality is all important. Marketing becomes easier when you don't need to add any spin
Hi Kipp - I work for a marketing and design firm here in Houston and we always get requests for website re-designs. Before taking on any re-design we try to understand the client's motives and whether the site is underperforming. I think @Emily said it best - "Web sites, metaheaders, and social media don't help a company if they do not consistently support a strategy".
Anyways, thanks for sharing! - Aly
Disagree with #2. So many "seo gurus" say keyword meta tags don't matter, now it's the description doesn't matter. This is exactly why the search results pages give you irrelevant results.
Meta tags, which is part of SEO, aren't done so the engines grab irrelevant info from a website and throws it in the results page.
All aspects of meta tags are important for relevancy. So, yes, I make a big deal out of the title, keyword and description meta tags, as well as content to make a site relevant for the search term. Otherwise, we'll keep getting what we've been getting...irrelevant search results.
PR people who spam are not PR professionals -they're usually folks who've figured 'a system' and hung a shingle.
Those of us who've been around a while tailor everything that leaves our offices for each news outlet (or not if it's irrelevant for the publication) or better still, we simply pick up the phone and have a chat about something we think the journo will find useful for their readers!! And then we send them further info.
oh dear what superficial drivvel YAWN
Agree with most other commenter's, except a little more vehemently on #2 - a badly written or missing Meta Data Description could stop a potential customer from clicking through to your site, it's that simple.