This might just make some of you laugh...

[tharmon]

Hello,

I work for a mid-sized hotel management company in the midwest, and I've just been recently getting into SEO and trying to come up with an effective SEO strategy for our websites that, quite frankly, are atrociously done without the slightest hint of SEO in mind.
Luckily, my parents have been in the business since 1993 and are a wealth of knowledge. They have given me countless books to read and I believe I'm starting to grasp the basics.
I've been working on this for the last 3 months, learning as I go, and the more I proceed, the more ridiculous things I find. Here's an example:
"<meta name="Hotels & motels" content="find a hotel in Springfield Missouri, Springfield hotels, MO, Branson, hotels in Branson, hotels in Springfield, Bass Pro Shop, motels in Joplin, Hotels in Joplin, apartments in Springfield, find an apartment, Southwest Missouri, apartments near SMSU, university, route 66, business, vacation, find a place to stay, apartment, apartments, apartments for rent, apartment for rent, apartment search, apartment finder, rental, apartment guide, rentals, houses for rent, house for rent, apartment listings, For Rent Magazine, Rent, rental listings, apartment agency, rental agency, apartment guide, apartment guides, real estate rental, real estate renting, real estate, Oak Ridge Properties, Baymont, Best Western, Lamplighter North, Lamplighter South, Eagle's Lodge, Candlewood Suites Joplin, Candlewood Suites Springfield">"

I was in utter amazement when I first saw this, and also suprized that the guy that is in charge of our marketing is getting paid anything over $6.50an hour...
So, if anyone would like to give me some helpful suggestions and feels up to the challenge, the site is elliottlodging,com and I would love the input.
It's a complete mess, but I think it's going to be an excellent way for me to get my feet wet :)

[AussieWebmaster]

the meta tag keyword stuffing is a waste and makes site look bad. try 3 keyword phrases in title and keywords and then make the description using them

[aks2008]

I am really amazed after seeing your post. What kind of meta tag is it? I've seen it for the first time. I would suggest you to first understand the meta tags in deep. know more about on page factors of optimization. then, proceed further.

[tharmon]

I am really amazed after seeing your post. What kind of meta tag is it? I've seen it for the first time. I would suggest you to first understand the meta tags in deep. know more about on page factors of optimization. then, proceed further.

This is what I'm saying :)
meta name="hotels & motels" is not a meta tag in any way, shape, or form. There are only two reasons I can come up for doing this: 1) He uses Adobe GoLive, and out of shear ignorance thought it might do the same as "meta name="Classification" content="Travel"" or something to that effect. 2) He honest to God thinks this is a meta tag and is, quite frankly, stupid.

This is seriously just the tip of the iceburg as far as ridiculous things wrong with this site. My company wonders why we aren't getting indexed, and our title for our front page is "apartments and hotels in Springfiled & SW Missouri"
..."Springfiled"!!!
Of course people won't find our site if you can't even spell the GD city we are located in!
It's an overall appauling site. The domain name is just "elliottlodging", so if you're curious, there are a TON more mistakes that are mildly entertaining/depressing.