Websites are for People not Engines
Posted on July 31, 2007
Volumes are written about Search Engine Optimization and how to improve your PageRank. In truth, SEO is a means to an end, getting people to read your site. I thought it worth giving some simple steps to improve PageRanking.
Anyone new to optimization can begin to feel that there is a great chasm of understanding to be gained before beginning web publishing. Posting information to a page that ranks well on search engines and written for ease of use by readers is actually deceptively simple. Going hand-in-hand with my post Search Engine Optimization Do’s and Don’ts, this post will give you a few simple steps to advance your web publishing efforts.
Simple Steps for Writing an Optimized Post
- Develop an idea for a post. While research in the subject is valuable, formulate your own well developed content. This cannot be stated too often. Original content will result in higher PageRank.
- In Google, search blog titles to ensure there are no exact duplicate results.
- Develop a title that succinctly states the point of your post.
- Write a short paragraph summarizing the focus of the post. Proof your post for spelling, grammar and awkward sentence structure.
- Use bulleted lists and state the essential ideas with key terms to be found in Google in the post like "Search Engine Optimization" or "User optimized websites".
- Use subtitles, illustrations and photos to guide the user.
- Use online SEO tools such as: http://tools.seobook.com/ to look-up search terms.
- Daily monitor your web traffic using Google Analytics or stats from sites such as MyBlogLog.
- Write serial or related posts that give users a body of information on a given topic.
- Link both to meaningful related information on other sites and back into your own post.
Writing to an audience with some basic guidelines will promote the development of content that users will appreciate and share with others. While it may seem like SEO boils down to learning the tricks of the trade, writing worthwhile and valuable content will create a lasting impression. When quality content is developed, people link to your site which will do more for PageRanking than any trick in the book. I remember one of the Yahoo reps at a Search Engine conference saying, "Do the right thing and you will rank well."
There are many other steps one can take to promote a site, but starting with solid posts is the cornerstone. These are good practices I take with posts. Any tips or ideas you’ve picked-up that I haven’t mentioned in either post on optimization? What’s working for you?
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Comments
6 Responses to “Websites are for People not Engines”
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Phil, This is a great post! … offering many workable tips.
I totally agree with you that websites or blogs are meant for people not search engines. One must spend more time to prepare great content.
Phil, you are doing great. Keep it up!
Thanks for this wonderful post.
Best Wishes
Sam Chan
Sam, Thanks for the encouraging words. Like anything else we do, worthwhile and effective communication takes time. It’s easy to lose focus. It’s the people who read this blog that I direct my writing. That helps me to keep me on track.
I never put that much effort into a post. If I did, I’d probably only post once a month! This is god to know though. I’m a little confused about #7 why would you look up search terms?
Thanks for thinking of me (with my scary post). I really couldn’t sleep last night.
I like to also include a “Clif Hanger” at the end to make my reader want to come back tomorrow for more. The posts this week are piller posts, so I don’t have cliff hangers in them, but look back about 2 weeks to get an idea what I do.
BeachBum
Cherann, these practices are something that as you apply them, they become second nature. You also have to balance the effort w/ the expected return etc. You write very personal information, so some of the strategic methods may not seem as relevant on some levels. Looking-up search terms is a tool to see volume of search by words, so if you were wanting to gain traffic for a search topic, you can compare what are popular topics and write to those. It gives you a tool to look at what are the hot issues and how well folks are writing to them. I may write more on SEO tools.
Hang in there. I hope you get more rest soon.
BeachBum, That’s a very cool idea in a serial of posts. Especially if you write-out a series and then post them out over several days. Very nice concept. That would certainly work towards making a sticky site. Nice thought.