Looking at the Big Picture- A Website Checklist Continued

Last month we discussed design issues. This month we're going to talk about content.

Content is King
Content is important for your site for two reasons:

1. Readable content improves your site's ranking with the search engines and
2. Content is what your site visitors are looking for.

Let's start with the Search Engine's viewpoint
A searcher comes to the search engine and enters a term like "motorcycle parts." The search engine then looks through all of the words it's indexed from sites within its database to determine which sites are primarily about "motorcycle parts." This means that it will disregard terms like "brakes," "most dependable," etc. because they do not match the search term "motorcycle parts."

From the selected sites, it will then organize them in order of relevance. Those that have the exact term "motorcycle parts" appearing the most often throughout the site should be presented first. Those that contain the words "motorcycle" and "parts" (but not together as a phrase) will most likely appear in the next group of selections. Finally, those with just one of the search term words will be selected.

Now, here's where most site owners go wrong. First, they don't research their keywords to find out what are the most popular phrases being used to locate their product or service. For example, do people type in "motorcycle parts" more often than "motorcycle brakes," or "motorcycle handlebars?" This is important because you need to gear the content of your site towards those phrases that are most often searched. Then, they write copy without any consideration for the search term. I once had a site owner ask me to evaluate his site which did laser cutting. He supplied me with a list of search terms for which he wanted his site to rank well. Not one of those terms appeared at his site. In fact, for whatever reason, he neglected to use the word "laser" as a word anywhere in his site (remember that words on graphical buttons can't be read by the search engines).

So, how do you find out what people are searching for? There are numerous software packages available like wordtracker that can offer you that information. I use a tool supplied by Overture. While you do have to take into consideration that the terms presented have been edited by Overture's editorial staff, I still feel that it gives you a pretty good idea of how search terms are being entered. Where do you find this tool? Here: http://www.overture.com/d/USm/adcenter/tools/index.jhtml. Click on "Term Suggestion Tool." Enter a broad word like "motorcycle" and see all the various phrases that are entered by searchers looking for anything to do with motorcycles. At the time of this search "motorcycle part" is showing in the number 3 position with 75,767 searches for this phrase in the month of August. Now the actual phrase may be "motorcycle parts" not "part" so you need to make sure that your content contains both singular and plural uses of this phrase.

Where does Overture get these numbers? Overture is a bid-for-placement search engine that has partnered with nearly every major search engine to show the top bidding results for various keywords. So, each of Overture's partners must send Overture the search phrase so that Overture can supply the top bidding sites for that phrase. By tracking these phrases, Overture is able to supply fairly accurate numbers of how search terms are entered and how many inquiries there are on the phrase. Overture always show singular because, when you bid at Overture for a specific phrase, you are automatically given that phrase both in singular and plural versions.

Now, from the searcher's viewpoint
Why would anyone be looking for your site? Are they begging to have you sell to them? Do they care that you do precision work, or would they rather know that you can hold tolerances within .0001 mm? What do they want to learn from your site? How can your site be made to be valuable enough for them to want to bookmark it? These are the questions you need to answer before you decide what to put at your site. It's not about what YOU want to sell, it's about what the INTERNET SURFER wants to learn.

Be careful about casual use of terms or buzz words. While the site visitor may recognize them, the search engine may not. And, in some cases, the site owner gets so casual that even the site visitor hasn't a clue as to what the site's about.

Know your audience and talk to them at their level of expertise. The better your site is at educating the visitor about your services, the better the site will rank overall with the search engines and the better your site traffic will build as word-of-mouth spreads to other professionals who may be looking for the same information. Include helpful content like online calculators, Flash™ demonstrations, and any other information that could prove valuable to the site visitor.

DO NOT TRY TO DECEIVE. If your site is about motorcycle parts, don't try to make it about "motorcycle babes" because that's a more popular search term. The site visitor will only be aggravated if he comes to your site and discovers that it does not contain the information he was seeking. The visitor is always just one click away from leaving your site. Make his experience rich in content and relevant to his search and he will consider your firm a friendly and trustworthy company that he can do business with. No one wants to buy from the snake-oil salesman. Earn your site visitor's trust by providing accurate and informative information.

Use Professionals
Get a professional Internet copywriter to write your content. There is a big difference between writing short ad copy, direct mail letters, and writing for the Internet. Get a professional who knows the difference. Internet copy needs to be short, to the point, and contain those required keyword phrases often enough to get your site listed. Your copywriter and site designer should work together to present the content in the best light. Let's face it, if you're a company owner you may know everything there is to know about your product, but who could expect you to be an expert designer, copywriter, and marketer (unless your company is an ad agency or web design and Internet marketing firm)? A site done right the first time is less costly than having to have it redone over and over again until it works for you. In the meantime, how much potential business have you lost because your site wasn't up to par?

Forget the bells and whistles
Okay, you've seen lots of sites with Flash presentations, words marching across the screen, music playing, etc. My advice is this: If it isn't absolutely necessary to demonstrate something about your product - don't do it. Every piece of multimedia and scripting either adds to the load time of your site or can produce problems with some browsers (Netscape 6.x, for example, chokes on many older JavaScripts, so the special effects you insisted on may not be seen by many site visitors). Make the visitor's experience a fulfilling one by providing them with rich content and online tools.

This has been a long issue, and I apologize, but content is what your site is really all about. It bears careful consideration and planning to ensure that your web site works for you as a marketing tool. My last word on this subject: make sure your site tells the visitor what you want him to do (call us, E-mail us, request a quote today, etc.). As simple as this sounds, check out many of the sites out there and you'll see that this particular piece of information is either missing or downplayed.

Until next month, happy surfing!

™ Flash is a trademark of Macromedia