Content is King: Long Live the King!
Hello!
In our last issue of Ideas & Solutions we discussed some of the components which make a viable Web solution for your business. Specifically, we discussed the many ways in which your content could be delivered in order to provide the best return on investment for your business, and the best source of goods and/or services for your customers.
In this edition, it seemed appropriate to build on this information by covering a little more detail of exactly how to structure your content in a way which attracts search engines and makes your product "findable" by people searching for you.
How Searchable If Your Content?
If you are like the majority of people, you've spent a great deal of time and money working on the aesthetics of your site and/or Web application. You avoided the trap of purchasing a template and created a customized representation of your business or activity. Visually, the site is what you saw in your mind's eye all along and it is perfect. In fact, you've even had compliments from people on how your site looks.
Now your site has matured a little and you're making inquiries about Search Engine Optimization, and how to make your site appear higher in the search engine rankings.
If this describes you, or your business, then you have probably found that there might be some necessary changes to your content and the overall look and feel of your site in order for it to become "search engine friendly". I would venture to say that this is particularly the case if your site relies on Adobe Flash animation for any important functions such as navigation, or the rendering of text and images.
The reason why content needs to be what we describe as "search engine friendly" is because the programs which companies like Google and Yahoo use to find your site, are also trying to view your content. They do this so that an accurate calculation of your site's relevance in relation to keyword searches can be made.
So, when you decide to develop or re-develop your site, be sure that your Internet and Web professional understands the importance of consulting a Search Engine Optimization specialist from the outset. Otherwise you could be left with a "Paris Hilton" Web site. That is, it looks great, but it contributes little or nothing to your bottom line or productivity.
Keywords Are Not Enough
Not too long ago we believed that if we could figure out the correct keywords to use in our META tags1, our sites would be found by the right audience on the Internet. In fact, keyword research has become an enormous component in the search engine optimization process.
Still, paying attention only to the keywords which appear in our META tags is not enough. As part of the process known as "Keyword Analysis", we are required to analyze the appropriate use of these keywords in our content, because that is precisely what the search engines are doing when their highly specialized programs are examining our pages.
If you read our previous article, How To Hire a Web Professional", you will understand that this is one of the areas which will concern your Internet and Web professional.
What Makes Content "Search-Friendly"?
Remember that "perfect" site I referred to at the beginning of this article? Well, the way a search engine views your site is a lot different to how we view it. The brief, but effective description of how a search engine views your site is as follows:
A search engine views your site as machine readable code.
What this means to you is that the search engine does nothing to try and recognize the relevance or importance of images, or image rendering software, on your site.
Often it is impossible to have textual content appear perfectly on a Web site without creating an electronic image of the text. This will allow the text to appear in the precise font that you want, it will mean that the letter and word spacing is exactly as you want it, but the trade-off is that your content will not be viewed by the search engines.
So what does this mean?
What it means is that your site is less likely to come to the attention of those whom you really wish to see it; your customers!
A carefully planned, well-formed Web site will be developed with the following items in mind:
- Valid Coding 2
- Meaningful page titles
- Relevant page headings
- Original, textual content
- Active, genuine links 3
- META tags
- "alt" tags 4
- Clearly separated style and content 5
It probably is not necessary for you to know all of these points, but you should know that they exist and that they are important factors when developing your site. For the technically-minded, or just plain curious, however, we've provided footnotes below to help explain some of these points to you.
To Wrap It Up
Making sure your text is indexable by the search engines is paramount. Text which is represented by an electronic, graphical image cannot be read by search engines. For that matter, images cannot be easily ready by any computers. Consider the number of times you've been asked to type the text seen in an image when you are using a contact form on a Web site. This is so that the computers used by programmers cannot flood the recipients with unwanted email through the contact form.
Sure, there are what we call "work-arounds," but they just won't produce the effective results that you'd like for your site. If the search engines cannot interact with your site, there is no way of analizing your content and calculating its relevance with keywords used by people who search the Internet; OUR CUSTOMERS.
In nearly all cases the "work-arounds" I referred to above will not be enough to compete for first page placement (i.e top 10 on Google, Yahoo!, or MSN).
As you''ve been reading through this editorial I hope that you've been inspired to consider the importance of your site's content and the way in which it is presented in a Web browser.
Perhaps you have always known the importance of preparing a site for search engines, but now you can comfortably work with your Internet and Web professional to achieve the most affective outcome for your business.
If this applies to you, I hope you've enjoyed reading this article as much as I have enjoyed producing it for you.
If you have any comments or questions about this article, or our newsletter in general, email us, or call (503)430-7175
Sincerely,
Warren A. Smalley
Founder
Footnotes:
- META tags are snippets of code which are intended only for Web browsers and other Internet-based applications, such as search engines, to read. META tages are not intended to be viewed by visitors to our site. If they can be seen, there is something wrong with the code used in your site.
- HTML code has been standardized as much as possible in standards laid out by an organization known as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Adherence to these standards can ensure that your site will be viewable in all or most of the browsers being used in the world, and that your site is "search engine friendly"
- There are few things more frustrating for a user than finding dead links. This is equally true for search engines. As a rule, the search engines will ignore most or all of your site, because of a dead link here or there. The rule to observe here is to always keep your site updated.
- "alt" tags are used to help screen readers, often used by people with visual impairments, to describe images on a page to users.
- Using hacks, such as tables, to aesthetically arrange the content of your site is a dated method. Today, professional web developers use files which are known collectively as "Stylesheets", or "Cascading Style Sheets" (CSS). These specialized files help to make content more machine readable, therefore, attractive to search engines.