Give the Spiders What They Want

You have a business, or you work for an organization that wants its Web site to gain a higher position in search engine rankings. Understood. Don't we all. But how? One way depends on how you decide to optimize your site. You can spend all your time chasing the magic algorithms of Google, Yahoo, and MSN, among others, or you can turn to what those tricky little "spiders" are really looking for-- relevant content.

Don't Be Such a Digital Diehard

Those who think only in digital terms will spend all their time working code, tweaking algorithms, and continually trying to outsmart the engines. And they will lose, because that's not how a Web site gains its position in the rankings. The key phrase here, again, is relevant content. That's what the search engines are looking for. If you write content aimed at your target audience -- content that is designed to capture and hold their attention based on their search terms -- then you will have gone a long way toward keeping those spiders coming back again and again.

Once you've based your content on that premise, then you can go back and add key words and phrases. Just don't go crazy with it. Stick with about a two percent keyword/phrase density, with one key topic per Web page. Remember, the spiders are smart, smart, smart. They know when you're trying to spam them.

Write content for your target market -- the people who want to buy now-- not for the search engines. They're never going to buy a thing from you. After all, you've already got the left-brain digital stuff down. Stretch your horizons a little and let that right side -- the analog language side -- talk to both your audience AND the search engines.