SEOs and site owners fight hard to get a top position on the search engine results pages for their chosen keywords. But that’s only half the battle at best. If you’ve optimized your way to the top but still aren’t seeing the traffic and conversions you hoped for, keep reading.
When you started optimizing your web site, you probably read a number of articles that urged you to think like a search engine. We've published several of those kinds of articles here at SEO Chat; I've even written one myself recently. There's nothing wrong with these articles, but they don't quite give you the whole picture.
Most of these articles mention at least some of the following points:
* Search engine spiders can't see images and video, so you need include alt tags with a concise description and keywords.
* Keywords must fall naturally; do not stuff them. Include them strategically in titles, headers, and content. Search engines judge relevance based in part on keyword content.
* Search engines love fresh content; if possible, update your site regularly (here at the Shed, we shoot for at least three times a week).
* Search engine spiders choke on dynamic URLs; use static ones whenever possible.
* Get other sites to link back to your site with your keywords to indicate to the search engines that your site is relevant for that topic.
Speaking of relevance, Jacqueline Dooley wrote an excellent article for us a while back () that really illustrates the way a search engine spider "thinks." It touches on all of these points and more. If you can handle getting put down by the Google spider, figuratively speaking, you will learn a lot.
And if you don't like getting insulted by an automated program, even in the imagination and for educational purposes, cheer up. We're about to insult that spider back. So let's assume you know all about thinking like a search engine. It's time to step outside the search box.
That Spider is Just a Tool!
Sometimes when we optimize our sites to do well in the search engines, we forget that the Googlebot and even Google itself is just a tool. Searchers use them to find what they're looking for, and ideally we're using them to let searchers know what we have on our sites. But if we're building and optimizing our sites for Google's eyes alone, we're only doing half the job. Sure, Google might see that our site is relevant for a particular search, but how do we get that across to the searcher on the other side of the box?
It's not just our position in the SERPs that does it. If that were true, searchers would always click on the first link on the first page and the rest of us wouldn't stand a chance. I don't know about you, but as a rough guess I'll click on that first link only about half the time, maybe even less. Google thinks it's relevant - but I don't.
How do I decide that? Well, let me give you an example. Here's a screen shot of a search I did recently in Google for costume patterns. Sure, it's only April, but Halloween is just around the corner if you think like a costumer (to say nothing of Renaissance festivals, science fiction conventions, Star Wars Days at Disney and other possibilities for dressing up).
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When you started optimizing your web site, you probably read a number of articles that urged you to think like a search engine. We've published several of those kinds of articles here at SEO Chat; I've even written one myself recently. There's nothing wrong with these articles, but they don't quite give you the whole picture.
Most of these articles mention at least some of the following points:
* Search engine spiders can't see images and video, so you need include alt tags with a concise description and keywords.
* Keywords must fall naturally; do not stuff them. Include them strategically in titles, headers, and content. Search engines judge relevance based in part on keyword content.
* Search engines love fresh content; if possible, update your site regularly (here at the Shed, we shoot for at least three times a week).
* Search engine spiders choke on dynamic URLs; use static ones whenever possible.
* Get other sites to link back to your site with your keywords to indicate to the search engines that your site is relevant for that topic.
Speaking of relevance, Jacqueline Dooley wrote an excellent article for us a while back () that really illustrates the way a search engine spider "thinks." It touches on all of these points and more. If you can handle getting put down by the Google spider, figuratively speaking, you will learn a lot.
And if you don't like getting insulted by an automated program, even in the imagination and for educational purposes, cheer up. We're about to insult that spider back. So let's assume you know all about thinking like a search engine. It's time to step outside the search box.
That Spider is Just a Tool!
Sometimes when we optimize our sites to do well in the search engines, we forget that the Googlebot and even Google itself is just a tool. Searchers use them to find what they're looking for, and ideally we're using them to let searchers know what we have on our sites. But if we're building and optimizing our sites for Google's eyes alone, we're only doing half the job. Sure, Google might see that our site is relevant for a particular search, but how do we get that across to the searcher on the other side of the box?
It's not just our position in the SERPs that does it. If that were true, searchers would always click on the first link on the first page and the rest of us wouldn't stand a chance. I don't know about you, but as a rough guess I'll click on that first link only about half the time, maybe even less. Google thinks it's relevant - but I don't.
How do I decide that? Well, let me give you an example. Here's a screen shot of a search I did recently in Google for costume patterns. Sure, it's only April, but Halloween is just around the corner if you think like a costumer (to say nothing of Renaissance festivals, science fiction conventions, Star Wars Days at Disney and other possibilities for dressing up).
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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