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Many wannabe and newbie webmasters tend to view
search engines as their salvation. While certainly important, they can
not generate the traffic some hope for. Other marketing methods
must be employed as well. One problem that wasn't as much a
factor a year or two ago lies in the move of offline businesses to the
Web. Many come aboard with ample resources. They are prepared to spend
dollars in significant chunks. Many hire professionals to obtain good
search engine rankings. Can You Beat The Pros? Face
it. You are maintaining a site and growing a business. You need to
devote ninety percent of your day to marketing. This doesn't leave
much time for mastering the intricacies of search engine positioning.
It's likely the pros are going to beat you every time. With
each passing day it is more difficult to obtain top positions with a
given keyword. Competition continues to increase for any phrase
selected. And more and more professionals continue to climb on board
with no end in sight. That Elusive #1 Position The dream
of being #1 is only that: A dream. Suppose you do get a page to #1
with a given keyword on a particular search engine. How long will it
remain there? Not long, if the keyword is of interest to others.
Why? Because lots of people are looking for the top spot,
including the pros. Your page will be analyzed in detail until a
way is found to beat it. At some point, other submissions will out
rank yours, and you will begin to lose ground. Forget it. There
are far more important things to do than worry about getting or
maintaining a #1 position. So I Should Forget Search Engines?
No. Just forget about being #1, or even in the top ten. There
are not enough hours in the day to make search engine positioning a
high priority. The better plan is to devote what time is available to
building pages designed to rank well. Submit them. Then move on to
more important things. To put this another way, be content with
any page that ranks in the top 20 on a couple of search engines. And
realize that no page will rank as well on all of them. Further, accept
the fact that many pages will not rank anywhere near the top.
You can win the search engine game, but only if you accept the
above or a similar view as victory. So How Do I Do That?
First, write your pages for your visitors, not the search
engines. Only when content is ready for your visitors, should you
even consider search engines. Then consider each relative to your
keyword list. You may find a couple that will rank pretty well with a
given keyword just as written. Fine. Edit the title, description and
keyword tags to emphasize this keyword. Maybe try to work it into the
copy a couple more times. But do nothing that disturbs the flow of
the message to your visitor. What If That's Not Enough?
Build entry pages, often called gateway or doorway pages.
While there are many approaches to this task, I prefer the
following because it leads to pages that can be freely submitted
without risk of them being labeled spam. It goes like this.
Look at your keyword list and select one you can use
repeatedly while covering a topic of interest to your visitors.
The idea is to build great content, so repeated use of the word
must not detract. Be guided (but not driven) by the following.
> The content of the Title tag is likely to be the title used
in a search engine listing. Thus it is mandatory that it be a
headline that draws readers into your description. While holding
firmly to this objective, use the keyword as close to the
beginning of the title as possible. > The content of the
Description tag is likely to be what the search engines will use in
the listing. Here the objective is to assure the searcher clicks to
your site. This is pure advertising copy: it must compel the searcher
to click the link. Again, while holding firmly to the goal, use the
keyword as close to the beginning of the statement as possible. Use it
a second time only if it makes sense to do so. > Include
the keyword and variations in the Keyword tag as a suggestion to the
spiders of what to expect on the page. > In the body of the
page, use the keyword in an H1 tag at the top of the page, and in
subheadings as possible. Again, position the keyword as close as
possible to the beginning of each statement. But remember your
visitors will read this content. Avoid awkward statements created in
hopes of making spiders happy. > Within the content, use
the keyword as often as you can without detracting from readability.
Again, as close to the beginning of paragraphs as possible. And in the
last line on the page. Recommendations vary, but I get good results
when the keyword is 2% to 3% of the copy. Some recommend as high
as 10%, but I find that at this density, the value to visitors is
lost. So Now What? Submit the page and get on with
business. If it places well, great. If it does not, and you can spare
the time, create another page. At some point, however, let it
be. Get on with other marketing efforts. In the end, tools such as
advertising will provide far more targeted traffic than the search
engines can deliver.
_________________________________________________________ Bob
McElwain
Web marketing and consulting since 1993
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