Web Site Content is a Balancing Act
One of the raging debates among web site publishers and SEO
types is the tug-of-war between writing web site content for
actual human visitors vs. the search engine spiders. Basically,
it boils down to a question of impressing readers or making
search engines happy so they'll send you more traffic.
Well, here's a novel concept: DO BOTH!
It's really not difficult to walk the tightrope if you do some
research first. We all want to write compelling content that
will grab a reader's attention and hold it. But, to get any
readers in the first place, you need to provide content that
people actually search to find. Hate to be the one to break it
to you, but if you're an expert on a rare bird that maybe 100
people in the world have ever heard of, all the writing you do
online about it will go virtually unseen.
That's the conundrum, in a nutshell. Fortunately, there's a
pretty simple solution. It's called keyword research. Sounds
boring, doesn't it? Well, does it perk you up a bit to learn
that spending a couple of hours doing it can be the difference
between having a web site that collects dust and one that
collects bucks? Thought it might.
What you want to do is build a list of keywords (single words
and phrases) that are closely related to the theme of your site,
then write a page of content full of information about each
keyword. One keyword per page.
Now, here's the key to it all. Don't just pull a list out of the
air (or, in this case, your own brain). Why not? Because the
keywords you come up with may or may NOT be words that are
actually searched for at the major search engines. You need to
know for sure. In fact, knowing for sure is what separates a lot
of successful niche web site owners from the masses of others
who scratch their heads in puzzlement when their sites get very
little free traffic.
Wordtracker is a Godsend
So, how can you find out which keywords that are related to your
site's theme are searched for and which are not? Suffice to say,
there are several options, but the best is a service found at
wordtracker.com. These fine folks compile massive amounts of
data about the words searchers at the major engines type in when
they search. Then they present this data in a straightforward,
easy-to-read format that you can check quickly as you build your
keyword lists.
You simply go there, armed with a basic idea of which keywords
to check out, and wordtracker will give you a thumbs up or
thumbs down on each one by telling you how many times each
keyword has been searched. It can be very eye-opening. You'll
likely discover that some of your most cherished keywords are
virtually worthless from a search engine traffic standpoint.
You'll quickly learn to check your assumptions at the door when
you enter wordtracker's site!
OK, once you've built a working list of keywords that you now
know get used a lot by searchers at the major search engines,
you'll be way ahead of most of your competitors. The only
remaining step is to write some high quality, informative,
useful content about each keyword in your list and post it on
your site. Remember: one keyword (which can be a single word or
a phrase) per page!
If you make your content easy to read and chock full of
interesting information, you'll satisfy both elements mentioned
at the beginning of this article. Your visitors will get great
content, which will bring them back and convince some of them to
link to your site. And, you'll have built that content around
keywords that are actually being searched for at the big
engines. More searches = more traffic. It's that simple.
You'll have a web site that pulls in more and more free search
engine traffic as you continue to add content built around your
keyword list. Once on your site, your visitors will find
information that interests them and, hopefully, compels them to
bookmark your site, tell their friends and co-workers, and maybe
even give you a link on their own sites!
That, my friends, is how you win at the web site game. As
logical as this all sounds, very few of your competitors
understand it, let alone actually do it. So, get to it! They'll
be eating your site's dust while you collect all the bucks!