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SPIDERS AND YOUR WEBSITE
An effective website must have a clearly defined purpose.
And it must lead visitors to the action you want them to take.
Nothing can be allowed to interfere in this. The chance of a
search engine spider liking such a site is slim to none.
Your presentation may be pointed at making a sale,
generating a lead, obtaining information, etc. But at is a
sales pitch. This is not what spiders are looking for; they
want content. While it is unwise to ignore search engines,
all must be focused on the site purpose.
To turn this around, suppose all your pages make every
spider happy. And suppose all are in the top ten on most search
engines. Then you would expect a ton of hits. But not a one of
them would do you any good if the site fails to do its job.
Once the site is functioning as required, then the game
changes. You can now think about adding great content pages
that do rank well. (For ideas about building content pages,
send any email to mailto:contentpage@sitetipsandtricks.com)
And you can consider professional services that generate more
hits. (For a dandy, see "Search Engine Positioning Done Right!"
at But hits
to a site that doesn't work are meaningless.
In what follows I will use the term site to mean a new site,
or a new sub site within an existing site, or simply a new page.
While there are exceptions, it is unlikely such pages will rank
well.
Define Your Perfect Customer
The best approach is to define every feature of your product.
Then derive all benefits each feature provides. And through all
this, consider all possible people who may respond to these
benefits.
From this set, define the potential customer most likely
to buy once your benefits are presented. Regardless of other
possible buyers, focus all attention on your best prospect,
your perfect customer.
If you need assistance with the above, pick up a copy of Joe
Robson's book, "Make Your Words Sell." Nobody makes this task
clearer than Joe does. For my review of this remarkable work,
send any email to
Targeted Keywords
This is the set of phrases your perfect customer is most
likely to enter when looking for your product or one similar
to it. Each must be a phrase that comes naturally to your
prospect's mind.
Generic words such as music simply won't work. Even jazz
is not sufficiently specific. For a good method for finding
appropriate keywords, send any email to:
Building Great Pages
From the headline on each page to the last word on the last
page, every single word must seek to compel your visitor to take
the action you want. This is *not* the time to be thinking about
search engine spiders; they are not buyers. You write with a
total focus on your perfect customer and let nothing distract
you from listening to whatever he or she can share with you.
Preparing For The Spiders
When the site is as ready as it can be, there are a few
things you can do to help increase the ranking of these new
pages. But be sure no change diminishes the effectiveness
of the site in any way.
The Meta Statements
The keyword meta statement is no longer of any use in search
engine positioning. Only AltaVista and Excite bother to read
the tag. And it appears you get little, if any, boost from it.
Some have suggested omitting it entirely. I include only those
keywords that
appear on the page. But I do include the tag.
Search engine algorithms change constantly. Who's to say this
tag will not again become relevant.
But the title and description tags do matter. Most search
engines use them as you wrote them to create the listing for
your page. Some do not consider them in ranking the page.
Think of the title as the headline of an ad that draws
attention to the ad copy. And think of the description as the
ad copy that compels the reader to click to your site. And
above all, be certain a visitor who clicks on your listing
finds what was expected on the page.
Back To Keywords
You may be able to do some tweaking of your pages relative
to keywords. Since the keyword set evolved along with your
definition of your ideal customer and the features, then
benefits of your product, chances are some of these keywords
are included on some pages. Or a minor change can bring this
about.
Suppose you are working with a page upon which "fly fishing"
occurs five times as an integral part of the pitch. While this
is not sufficient repetition for a top position on any search
engine, the page may rank reasonably well.
You can improve the chance of a higher ranking by including
the phrase in your title tag and meta description tag, as close
to the beginning of each statement as possible. Remember the
title is the ad headline and the description is the ad copy; be
sure rewriting does not weaken the ad. And while it may be
ignored, include it first in the keyword tag as well.
Try To Add Keywords To The Page
Suppose you have the following sentence on the page: "The
secret to fly fishing is the rod."
Consider adding "fly" so that it now reads, "The secret to
fly fishing is the fly rod."
Adding this word does not help the pitch. But so long as
it does not detract from it, we're good. If "fly rod" now
occurs four times on the page, add it to the meta keyword tag.
And it may be possible to slip it into the description some
way, but avoid forcing it. The title and description must
bring a click. It's easy to clutter them up to the point
where they don't do the job.
Other Things
If you are using heading tages, it helps if keywords for
the page are included in them as close to the beginning of
each as possible. Some have reported good success with
including them in ALT tags.
While there is only a small bit of fine tuning that
can be done with a well designed site, it's worth the effort
to do so. For even a small gain can improve ranking
substantially.
What Matters Most
The performance of the site is the key. Rankings on
search engines is way down on the priority list compared
to site performance.
Only when the site is up and doing the job, is it appropriate
to consider generating more hits. As suggested, content pages
work. And there are those who can generate hits for you.
Advertising works, but takes some time to master. Link swaps
are very effective, and often overlooked.
There is literally no end to what can be done to generate
more hits. But until site performance is maximized, more hits
mean next to nothing.
About the Author
Bob McElwain
Want to build a winning site? Improve one you already
have? Fix one that's busted? Get ANSWERS. Subscribe
to "STAT News" now! mailto:join-stat@lyris.dundee.net
Web marketing and consulting since 1993
Site:
Phone: 209-742-6349
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