Have you heard this search engine optimization (SEO) tactic? The more times you use your keyword, the better your chances of attracting the search engines. This is referring to keyword density, meaning the number of times your targeted keyword phrase appears in your web copy. There is no proven scientific formula for this, but the right phrase employed in the right places, such as your headline and subheads, will work wonders as search engine bait.
However, there are two parts to good SEO:
- Getting visitors to your site and
- Enticing them to stay. Recently, I came across a web page with this headline:
How to be your own boss and enjoy total freedom.
I quickly scanned the subheads (as typical web readers trend to do) to see if the content was of interest to me. This is what I saw:
Discover if it is right for you to be your own boss
Crunch the numbers before you be your own boss
Learn how to make money while you be your own boss
Make the transition from working for someone to be your own boss
Any guesses as to what the keyphrase is? I’m pretty sure it’s “be your own boss.”
In addition to this phrase repeated in the subheads, it was used ad nausea throughout the content making it sound ridiculously redundant.
Which brings me to the second part of SEO: Enticing readers to stay. I decided not to spend any more time on this page. It was painfully obvious that the copy was constructed for the sole purpose of building traffic, not to dispense advice to anyone considering an independent career path.
The bottom line is that while it’s important to make your content visible to the search engines, it’s more important to make it relevant to your visitors. Always write for them first. If your content is solid with natural keyword or keyphrase placement, search engine traffic and qualified customers will follow.
Marketing consultant at Get Elastic, Linda Bustos led the SEO session at Northern Voice’s Internet Bootcamp using Kris Krug as an example. Kris is a very talented and passionate photographer. His site Static Photography does pretty well in Google ranking for a number of reasons:
- His main keywords “Vancouver fashion and portrait photography” appear both in his title tag and main h1 tag
- His site uses blog software which is better for search engines than a static site since it can be updated frequently
- His links are keyword rich including his navigation links. For examples, instead of using fashion he uses “fashion photography”, instead of event he uses”event photography.
Kris also uses social media networks to promote his photography. The most obvious choice as a photographer is Flickr. By uploading his pictures on Flickr, Kris can share his images with others, tag them and insert keywords in his titles. Flickr also allows you to create a profile page, where a photographer can put information about their skills, link to their site and post testimonials.
It may seem like a lot of work, but these few simple tips can boost your traffic and help promote your site.
As promised, here is a first post by guest blogger Louise Desmarais from Mud Creative. We’re looking forward to reading Louise’s tips and advice on search engine optimization and writing copy for the web.
– Christine
Oh, those temperamental search engines. It used to be that meta tags (information about a web page that is not visible on the browser) were the sweet spot to bait search engine spiders. Now it seems they are more attracted to the title tag (the words that appear in the grey/blue bar at the very top of the browser window). Does that mean we don’t have to worry about meta tags anymore?
You could do without it, but then you might be missing out on an opportunity to influence how your web site page is described in the search engine results page (SERPs). Jill Whalen of High Rankings says, “It’s important to note that the search engines are always playing around with what they display as the descriptions for any given URL in the search engine results pages, so you may see something other than what I see.”
In other words, sometimes the engines draw from the visible page content, and sometimes from the meta tag information – even if it doesn’t have keyphrases in it. So, if there was nothing in your meta tag, the engine may draw from other places, like alt tags on photos or random blog copy, which probably doesn’t say enough about your website. Your best bet is to cover the bases with good meta tags that accurately reflect your page and entice the visitor to drop in for a closer look.
Web Content Management consultant and author, Gerry McGovern offers us these valuable tips when writing website content with search engine optimization in mind.
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When writing Web content, it’s important to remember keywords. Having the right keywords in your content is a must to achieve good search engine positioning. Simply sticking keywords in meta tags, however is not good enough. A few search engines do look at these, but these days, your content is crucial.
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