Web-site content is one of the most highly debated elements in search engine optimization, mostly
because many rather unethical SEO users have turned to black-hat SEO techniques, such as keyword
stuffing to try to artificially improve search engine ranking. Despite these less-than-honest approaches
to search engine optimization, however, web-site content is still an important part of any web-site
optimization strategy.
The content on your site is the main draw for visitors. Whether your site sells products or simply provides
information about services, what brings visitors to your site is the words on the page. Product
descriptions, articles, blog entries, and even advertisements are all scanned by spiders and crawlers as
they work to index the Web.
One strategy of these crawlers and spiders is to examine just how the content of your page works
with all of the other elements (like links and meta tags) that are examined. To rank high in a selection
of search results, your content must be relevant to those other elements.
Some search engines will de-list your page or lower your page rank if the content of your site is not
unique. Especially since the advent of blogs, search engines now are examining how frequently the
content on pages is updated and looking for content that appears only on your web site. This doesn’t
mean you can’t have static content on your page. For e-commerce sites, the product descriptions may
rarely change.
But including other elements on the page, like reviews or product updates, will satisfy a crawler’s
requirement that content change regularly. Content is an important part of your site and the ranking
of your site in search engine results. To achieve organic SEO, take the time to develop a content
plan that not only outlines what should be included on each page of your site, but also how often
that content will be updated, and who will do the updates.
One other element you might want to consider when looking at your page content as part of SEO
is the keywords that you plan to use. Ideally, your chosen words should appear on the page several
times. But again, this is a balancing act that might take some time to accomplish.
Keywords are part of your site content, and as such require special attention. In fact, the selection
of the right keywords is a bit of an art form that takes some time to master. For example, if your
web site is dedicated to selling products for show dogs, you might assume that “show dogs” would
be a perfect keyword. You might be wrong. Selecting the right keywords requires a good understanding
of your audience and what they might be looking for when they want to find your web
site. People looking for products for show dogs could search for “grooming products,” “pedigree
training,” or just “dog supplies.” It could even be something entirely different, like the name of a
product that was featured at the most recent dog show.
Learning which keyword will be most effective for your site will require that you study your audience,
but it also requires some trial and error. Try using different keywords each quarter to learn
which ones work the best.
It’s also advised that you use a tracking program such as Google Analytics to monitor your web site
traffic and to track the keywords that most often lead users to your site.
Google Analytics is a free web site statistics application that you can use to track your web site traffic.
You can access Google Analytics by going to http://www.google.com/analytics. You are
required to have a Google user name to access the program.
If you do not have a Google user name, you can create one when you sign up for the application. It’s
simple. Provide your e-mail address and a password, type the verification word from the graphic provided,
and then read the Terms of Service and click “I accept. Create my account.”
Once you’ve created your user name and password, accessing the tracking capabilities of Google is
no problem. You’ll need to copy a snippet of text that Google provides into the coding of your web
site. Once you’ve added the code to your site it will take a few days for Google to gather enough
information to provide reports about your site, and as much as two months to gather enough data
to give you real insight into your site. But once there is enough data, you’ll have access to the keywords
that most often lead visitors to your site.
Google Analytics can also be combined with Google’s AdWords program to provide paid keyword
tracking and information. To learn more about Google Analytics, check out the book Google Analytics
2.0 by Mary Tyler and Jerri Ledford (Wiley, Aug 2007, ISBN: 978-0470175019). It should be noted
that Google Analytics doesn’t track spiders and crawlers at this time, however, so there may be some
limitations to its SEO functionality. Still, if you need a (free) tool to help you examine some of the
metrics surrounding your SEO efforts, Google Analytics is a good starting point.
Internal and external links
Another element of organic SEO that’s just as important as your web-site content is the links on your
pages. Links can be incoming, outgoing, or internal. And where those links lead or come from is as
important as the context in which the links are provided.
When links first became a criteria by which crawlers ranked web sites, many black-hat SEO users
rushed to create link farms. These were pages full of nothing but web links, some of which led to
relevant information and some of which led to sites in no way related to the topic of the web site. It
didn’t take long for search engine designers and programmers to catch on to these shady practices
and change the way that crawlers use links to rank sites.
Today, links must usually be related to the content of the page, and they must link to something
relevant to that content. In other words, if your links don’t go to or lead in from pages that match
the keywords that you’re using, they will be of little value to you.
The balance of links that are included on your page is also relevant. Too many links and your
site could be labeled as a link farm. Too few and you’ll lose out to sites that have more and
better-targeted links.
Your best option when including links on your web site is to link to the pages you know for sure
are relevant to your site content. Don’t include a link unless you’re sure it will have value to your
users, and then take the time to pursue links into your site from them as well.
One other type of link, the internal link, is also important. This is a navigational link that leads users
from one page to another on your site. The navigation of your site (which is what these links are,
essentially) should be intuitive, and natural in progression. And you should also include a site map.
Your site map not only makes it easier for crawlers to index every page of your site, but it also makes
it easier for users to find their way around in it. Ideally, users will never have to rely on the site map;
however, it’s nice for it to be there in the event that they either need it or simply want to click directly
to the page they’re seeking.
How you design your site map is a matter of preference. Some organizations create site maps that
only include the top two levels of pages. Others include ones that go three levels down or deeper.
Whatever level of depth you think will be required by the majority of users is how deep your site
map should go. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that site maps can become just as overwhelming
as any other navigational structure if there are hundreds of pages in your site.
Design your site map so it’s easy to decipher and will take users to the pages they are seeking without
difficulty and confusion.
User experience is a little harder to quantify than other site-ranking elements. It’s easy to say that
users will find your site simple to use, that they will find the information or products that they’re
seeking, or that they will have reason to return to your site. But in practice, that’s a little more difficult
to achieve.
So, how in the world can a site gain search engine ranking by user experience? It’s fairly simple
really. Search engines today are smarter than they have ever been. They may not be able to make
you a grilled cheese sandwich, but they can certainly keep track of what results users click when
they run a search. Those result selections are essential to adding to the organic ranking of your site.
Here’s a scenario. Say you search for something like health-insurance information. When the search
results come up, how are you going to choose which results to look at? Most users read the small
descriptive lines that are included with the search engine ranking and select from those.
In most cases, the sites that are visited are those sites that are highest in the rankings. But search
engines also monitor which sites are actually clicked on, so let’s say you search through the results
and click a link on the fifth page. And suppose several other people do so as well.
That link on the fifth page is going to show more traffic than links that are higher in the results, so
smart search engines will move that page higher in the rankings. It may not jump right up to the number
one position, but it’s entirely possible for the site to move from the fifth page of rankings to the second
or third. This is part of the equation used when user experience is taken into consideration.
Another part of that experience might be how quickly the user jumps back to the search page. Maybe
when you click that link on the fifth page, you can tell when you hit the site that it’s not the page you
were looking for (or doesn’t contain the information or product that you were looking for). You click
the back button, and you’re taken back to the page of search results.
This is called bounce, and the rate at which users bounce off your site is an indicator of the usability
of the site in terms of how relevant it is to what users are searching for. This relates directly to the
keywords the user searched for, which relates directly to how your site matches those keywords.
To maximize the usability of your site, make sure the keywords you choose and the description of
your page are as accurate as possible.
It may take some time for you to learn how to make all of these elements work together, especially
when it comes to elements like descriptions and keywords. Be patient, and be willing to experiment
with different combinations of words or descriptions until you hit on the ones that combine to send
your site rank closer to the top search results. Just remember, it’s an art more than a science, and it
takes time (usually two to three months) to see the most accurate results.
Site interactivity
When the Internet first came into being, web sites were all about disclosing information. The only
interaction between a web site and a user was the reading the user did while on the site. Today, reading
is still important. Users search for web sites to learn more about products, services, or topics.
However, there’s much more to web sites today than just text on a screen.
We now live in the Interactive Age. Most of us want to interact with the web sites we’re visiting. That
interaction might take the form of a poll, the ability to comment on a blog post, the downloading of
a file, or even a game that relates to the site content. No matter what the type of interaction, users
expect it, and search crawlers look for it.
Site interactivity is essential to achieving a high SEO ranking. Sure, you can garner a high ranking
without interaction, bit it won’t happen nearly as fast, and the ranking will likely be lower than that
of a site that has some form of interaction with the user.
Why is interaction so important? Simple. If you can influence a user to interact with your site, you
have more of a chance of gaining a goal conversion. Goal conversions are the completion of some
form of activity designed to gather further information about your user. A goal conversion can be
something as simple as enticing users to sign up for a newsletter, or it can be more specific, like
persuading them to make purchases.
No matter what goal conversion you’re seeking, the way to achieve it is through interactivity. And
the more frequently the user interacts with your site, the more likely it is that this person will reach
that goal conversion page that you’re monitoring so closely.
Goal conversion is the purpose of many web sites. For example, the target goal conversion for an
e-commerce web site might be for the user to make a $25 purchase. If you can entice a user to purchase
from your site — that is, meet the goal conversion — you have more of a chance of getting
them back to your site for a future purchase, to find additional information, or simply to interact
with your site some more.
All of these are important aspects of your web site’s traffic patterns. And search engines will look for
elements of interactivity to judge the value of your site to users. One goal of search engines is to provide
value to users. Those users turn to the search engine for help in finding something specific.
Just as it’s important for your site to land high in the search results, it’s important for the search
engine to provide the information that a user seeks within the first page or two. Making the user
happy is one way search companies make their money. Another way is through the dollars that
advertisers will pay to have their pages ranked high in the search results or their advertisements
shown according to the keywords for which the user was searching.
In other words, search engine optimization is two-way street. It’s also a business, and search engine
companies are always trying to find ways to improve their business. For that reason, these elements,
and many others, are an essential part of search engine optimization.
Organic SEO is certainly not easy to achieve. One way to achieve it is to have a solid SEO plan that
outlines where you are and what needs to be added to your site design or content to make it more
visible to users. It also takes a lot of time and effort to create and implement the right SEO plan.
However, if you use your SEO plan as a stepping stone, even for organic SEO, you’ll stay focused
and eventually, you’ll achieve the search engine ranking that you’ve been working toward.
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