Why Search Engines must define your online objectives
If you know anything about how websites work, then you
probably know something about "keywords" and "keyword strategy", and Search
Engines. Roughly speaking a "keyword" is a short one or two (or sometimes
three) word description of the content of a web page, which is placed in that
page so it clearly identifies what the page is about. The best keyword is one
that neatly encapsulates the subject matter of the page. For instance, this
page you are reading right now is about "keyword strategy", so that would seem
to be a perfect keyword to describe its content. Well, not quite (see the end
of the article). The Search Engines have the last say.
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I can almost guarantee you will not appreciate the
significance of keywords until you give some serious thought to how people
find things on the net. In other words, until you think about how Search
Engines work. Because Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Excite, Alta Vista,
etc.) are far and away the most popular means of finding pages on the web.
In a nutshell, Search Engines find pages by looking for
keywords.
This is the First immutable LAW OF THE UNIVERSE — the web
universe.
"Search Engines find web pages by looking for keywords."
For example, if you want to find websites about "disc golf",
you do a search for (daah) "disc golf", or "disc-golf", or "golf with discs".
Pretty obvious, right?
The problem is, if it's so obvious why do so many webmasters
and web designers not know how to define their key words properly? Why do they
create a page about "disc golf", and then assign it a keyword like "Billy
Golfer" (the author), or "Oklahoma" (where the author plays disc golf), or
"playing", as though somebody searching for "playing" might accidentally find
web pages about "playing disc golf"? Take it from me. They won't.
I confess. I am as guilty as the next person of this
sort of keyword ignorance. For years I have built websites, completely
ignoring keywords altogether. My excuse was always, "Well, I don't really have
a product that I can sell on the internet, so I don't really care about
scoring well in the Search Engines."
Uuuhhh, what's that? So why do you have a website at all?
Hmmmm. I don't know....so customers can look up my prices and product
descriptions...?
But isn't the obvious question then: "If you actually have
customers, why wouldn't you try to describe your products or services in ways
they are likely to find, or that other prospective customers might be likely
to find — even if they are strictly local customers?"
Good question, isn't it? You simply cannot argue with the
facts. If you have a website that doesn't score well with the Search Engines,
you will have practically ZERO traffic. And if you have no traffic, why are
you wasting time and money having a website?
The obvious answer — yes, it IS obvious! — is that you
DO WANT TRAFFIC, but you just don't know how to get it. The First LAW
OF THE UNIVERSE ("Search engines find web pages by looking for keywords")
dictates that to get traffic, you MUST design your web pages to cater to the
Search Engines.
Is this difficult? No, not really. But it does require some
serious planning and analysis BEFORE you start building your site. Because not
only should you build the right keywords into your web pages, but you should
CHOOSE THE RIGHT KEYWORDS before you begin.
Let me give you an example.
I spent at least a year building and rebuilding a site about
"Display Graphics", for our family business (www.canadadisplaygraphics.com).
In my estimation, I had carefully thought it through, and had decided that
"display graphics" was a pretty good description of what our company was
doing. But we had a major problem. We didn't have a product that was
marketable on the internet. Our products (poster prints, mounted graphics,
graphics used in trade show and retail settings) were too bulky and too
fragile to ship, and the pre-sell routine (send us your complex error-prone
digital files) was too complicated for the kind of "easy-in/easy-out" sales
you want to make over the internet.
In time we developed a line of "trade show display"
products. And, guess what? With the proper price tweaking, we were able to get
some serious action going on the internet. It required some pay-per-click
advertising to buy the traffic (because I still wasn't trying to get traffic
from the Search Engines), but it was traffic nonetheless.
What did that tell me? Well, first, it told me we had a
viable internet-ready product in "trade show displays". And, second, it told
me that people were actually able to find us by searching for "trade
show displays". In other words, we had accidentally found a keyword that
people are actually looking for, and we were able to score well (in Google) on
that keyword. The result: instant targeted traffic.
The point of this illustration...is that your keyword
strategy extends well beyond determining how to build your web pages. It
also determines how you should describe your product. It even, I might be
so bold to suggest, determines whether you should CHANGE YOUR PRODUCT
to something that is more marketable....Which brings us to the second LAW
OF THE UNIVERSE.
The Second, (almost) immutable LAW OF THE UNIVERSE
is... "Only pick keywords that score well with the Search Engines"
In other words, if nobody is looking for a specific keyword
(like "display graphics"), then avoid it like the plague. It is NO GOOD.
Eject it. Find something else. The reason: NOBODY WILL FIND A PAGE with
a poorly scoring keyword, because nobody is looking for it. Even using
pay-per-click advertising will not work, because (to repeat) nobody is looking
for this whatever-it-is poorly chosen keyword.
The ecstatically good news
What I have since found over the last couple of years, by
doing umpteen hours of research and testing, is that there are ways of
determining how keywords score, before you start building your site. If
you are thinking about building a site about "golf reviews" (like I did),
DON'T. Because nobody is looking for that term. Find another one (again, like
I did) that they ARE looking for, like "golf Scotland", or "golf Hawaii".
How do you know what "scores well" — what people are
actually looking for? You can do your own umpteen hours of research and
testing, buy various analytical tools costing you hundreds, even thousands of
dollars, and then learn how to use them. Or I can do an
SBO WebReport for you for a ridiculously
low price, and you can have the critical information in your hands in three or
four days. It's a no-brainer, right?
Of course, you may get lucky. You may strike on a niche
product and a couple of keywords that score well even without doing the
analysis. But it is extremely unlikely. The cost of doing the analysis
before you make all your product and web design decisions is trivial compared
to its impact on your site's success. This is MUCH, MUCH MORE IMPORTANT
THAN WEB DESIGN, because even a nicely designed site is VIRTUALLY USELESS
without traffic. Just ask anybody who has a nice-looking site that nobody ever
sees.
The Bottom Line...
Find an advisor or company that properly understands how the Search Engines
work, and how your keywords should cater to them. Find somebody who is
prepared to do the sort of analysis described here for a reasonable cost. And,
by the way, this is just the sort of service available at
www.small-business-online.com.
P.S.
Remember at the top I suggested that "keyword strategy" might be the perfect
keyword for this page? Well, I ran an analysis of "keyword strategy", and it
came up all zeros. Nobody is looking for the term "keyword strategy". So if I
want to generate any traffic to this page (and I do), then I'd better find a
better one. Here is a comparison, on a scale of 1-10, of the the search
engine potential of a number of possible keywords:
So look what I've done. I've called the page "search-engines.html".
I've put this primary keyword in the title (that appears at the top of your
browser), in the main headline "Search Engines and keywords", and in the meta
tags that you don't see. I've also liberally sprinkled the primary keyword
("search engines") throughout the article, and added a not-so-liberal
sprinkling of my secondary keywords, "keywords, "keyword", "keyword analysis",
"meta tags", and "search engine".
If you haven't heard about keywords, chances are this will
sound a bit pedantic and contrived. But that's the way the game must be played
to score well at the search engines.
