What’s more important? Creating sites for users or the engines? The answer is both.
Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be this - they naturally attract search engine traffic. Blogs already have optimized site architecture. Most are set up with a clear navigation, where every page is set up to link back to the other main pages. They also have the inherent potential to be well-linked.
Primarily a site should be designed for the user, with search engines in mind. Google tends to talk out both sides of their mouth when they say, “Don’t do anything special for the engines”. Yet, they create a webmaster tool center where you can submit a sitemap, and get information about how the engines see your site, errors and what key phrases your site ranks for. That gives new site owners a little bit of confusion.
I like sites that are easy to navigate, pleasing to the eye and that help sell whatever it is you need to. Pages should be set up as landing pages. The great thing about your blog is that it can get so well-indexed that you have the potential to show up for any number of four word phrases that are relevant to your industry. This way you can give the visitor everything they need to make a purchase or fill out a form. At the same time you can optimize these pages for the engines and use the pages for your PPC campaigns. I believe in doing sites this way. It brings the visitor a much better experience.
The perfect site is not only user friendly, but optimized for the engines. You need to target where people go to in order to provide them with the information or product they need. There is nothing worse than having people landing on a page that is optimized for a phrase but offers no information about it… It brings the user a bad experience and you a missed sale or lead. You have a choice. You can target a general high traffic keyword you have little chance of ranking well for and get barely any traffic. Once you have a page optimized, you can streamline the transition from viewing what you have to offer to facilitate a purchase. You can also provide related content and links. This, in turn, will help with you PPC because Google is now checking to see how relevant your landing pages are to the keywords you buy.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Sometimes a site’s structure (the relationships between its content) must be altered too. Because of this it is, from a client’s perspective, always better to incorporate Search Engine Optimization when a website is being developed than to try and retroactively apply it.Make a good quality site that will attract natural links to it in order to obtain any form of long term presence within the search engine results page.Make a good quality site that will attract natural links to it in order to obtain any form of long term presence within the search engine results page.
Hi Larry,
Looks like your are changing your blog’s theme isn’t it? Looks pretty neat.
I certainly agree with you that both search engines and readers are important aspect of blogging. SEOs will become a great source of free traffic in the long run. And isn’t SEOs targeted traffic as well? Who wouldn’t love this right?
Wei Liang
Wei Liang | ABloggerBlogs last blog post..Lesson 18 - Search Engine Optimizations
Thanks Wei, Thanks for the compliment on the new theme. I try to target both readers and seo techniques to get my websites noticed. I know in the long run if I keep posting original content, both will happen.
@ Larry
The fact is that if you target the wrong keyword that is irrelevant to your landing page, it will only make you loose some extra $ and time too. Not to mention that it also has a negative effect to your search engine rankings, if you are getting links from those keywords.
And BTW I agree to Wei , your new theme is neat
Kashifs last blog post..More One Way Links For Your Site
True Kashif, Targeting the wrong keyword will cause a negative effect. Thanks for the compliment also!
Every time I think I’m getting a handle on all of this. I’m reminded of how much I don’t know. Question, can I have more than one category for a post?
Susan/Unique Business Opportunitys last blog post..Building Trust is Key to Building a Network Marketing Business
Thanks for stopping by!
I feel the same way Susan, but with each new thing I learn, I get better at what I am trying to accomplish. Yes you can put your posts in more than one category.
I have to admit that I find it harder to do SEO for my blog than for websites, and I kind of consider myself very SEO knowledgeable, since that’s what I do on my side business. Then again, my blog is ever changing, which may confuse the search engines a little bit, but still, there are some posts that I must say are quality posts, nicely optimized, and yet still the highest rank I have for any of my posts is a 0, which to me is higher than unranked. I guess I shouldn’t overly care, since many of my titles will still bring me to #1 if someone puts that into the search bar, but still,…
Mitchs last blog post..Planning For Building A Commerce Website
I’m a firm believer that if you take care of the quality content piece of your blog everything else will work itself out. May take a little time, but quality trumps in my book.
Matt
Matt | Small Biz Bees last blog post..The Joy of Self Employment!
I always write and advise other to write for the user first and foremost…afterwards maybe pretty it up a bit for the SE’s. (Bolding, internal linking and so on.)
The main thing readers want to see is good quality content. The main thing search engines want to see is good quality content…..is this a pattern forming or what!
FYI - I’ve been reading a lot recently about how you DO NOT want a post in multiple categories. In fact, most say one and one only.
The search engines (Ok Google) doesn’t appreciate it. I’m going over my past posts slowly. The most categories I’m shooting for is two for any particular article.
Dennis Edells last blog post..$5 Paypal For The Best Favicon Idea!
Thanks for the comments, I think we all agree that quality content will take care of the users and the search engines. That is my philosophy. I will just be patient and let it all work out by posting quality posts.
@Dennis thanks for the tip about the categories, I did not know that.
@Susan if I gave you an incorrect answer. I will have to investigate that.
I have worked in the ecommerce field for the last couple of years but was doing SEO long before that. In ecommerce, a site built for users is an search engine optimized site. It took me a while to learn that but the connection is very apparent in ecommerce.
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Good morning, Larry.
I agree that it is important to properly organize a website for good navigation and proper architecture. Blogs are great at that, right out of the box, so to speak. They also provide things like RSS feeds which can get them noticed quickly, and optional things like sitemaps to help the search engines spider the site more completely.
I think that it is a given that these things should be a part of any site that hopes to attract any amount of visitors.
After that, I believe - as do the other commentators - that quality content trumps everything else. In the long run, this will be the key to attracting people to your site.
It looks like we’re pretty much in agreement on those two things.
When it comes to categories, there is some disagreement. (Good morning, Dennis.)
I have multiple categories on my blogs (one with over 100) and I’ve never seen any problems when posting to all the categories that fit.
One thing I do is syndicate the category RSS feeds to various sites. I want all applicable posts to show up in these feeds so they’ll be syndicated on the appropriate sites.
Some of my posts may be posted to six or more categories and they still show up well in the search engines.
Of course, as some of you may know, I don’t pay too much attention to SEO and the ideas and opinions that are rampant. I just do what I think is best for my goals and visitors. If the search engines like it, that’s a bonus.
If not, okay.
Act on your dream!
JD
John Dilbecks last blog post..Can AWeber and Squidoo Work Together?
John Now I am all confused, but yet I agree that I have not been penalized for posting in multiple categories. And we do agree on the principle that, I write to try and help out the new bloggers and users.
as for me, i think both seo and contents are really important now days especially when you have something really important to share with people outside the world. Contents without search engine optimization is like you’re writing something and keep it locked in your drawer. Readers have no time to dig all the search results from google. They just click till 5 to 6 pages only then get bored or lost their interested on the topics they search about.
In another hand, seo without contents is like a good book’s cover without pages inside. You just get a good title and short explanation.
Miss Busbuyseos last blog post..New and Latest Busby SEO Design
You are right both seo and content are important if you want to get noticed.
Larry, I knew it’s kind of stupid question to you, but I always wondered that what is the main purpose of “bolding the words”?
wilhb81s last blog post..Starting Your Own Business is Not a Dream Anymore!
What do you think about adding text on your content ? is it seo friendly ?
seorangss last blog post..Junk Blogger Planet Terasi
I noticed I can get rankings with regular blog updates and a few good links
Mr. Ex Backs last blog post..How to Win Back an Ex Fast in 3 Simple Steps
This is a nice article, thanks for the tips…..
randy braggs last blog post..2008 Depression Or Correction
Your new theme - Its great and i guess its help you managing SEO. These news magazine themes are in demand now a days.
Shanker Bakshis last blog post..The End of New Beginnings
Thanks Shanker
Great post Larry, I will put content first then SEO but both must be present in every post. “…The search engines (Ok Google) doesn’t appreciate it. I’m going over my past posts slowly. The most categories I’m shooting for is two for any particular article…” I agree with Dennis but if you’ve written hundreds of post with more than 2 categories, I’m not sure if it’s wise to delete any categories. You may lose whatever backlinks accorded to them.
Peter Lee
work at home ideass last blog post..100 Subscribers For Work From Home Business Blog
Good article Larry, I always hate seeing blogs where they are overkilling the keywords in the first paragraph of text .. people tend to overlook the fact that just because they might pop up in every search result it does not mean readers are going to become loyal to them.
Make Money Bloggings last blog post..Speeding Up Success - Real World Example
Great post! It is just as important to optimize your website for users as it is for the search engines and a good website will be optimized for both.
Matt Helphreys last blog post..The Three Most Important Things You Need to Increase Traffic to Your Blog
Great article! I think depending on what you’re trying to do with your site is important.
If you want pure traffic for a competitive phrase or words then optimize your site just for that compete phrases and don’t worry about pleasing your reading.
Now if you’re more focus on the long tail, whether your reader are at the middle of that buying funnel or near the end. Then your seo and content on that specific page should be at a high level!
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