Quality Content For Internet Users And Search Engines

When you turn on your computer and connect to Internet Explorer or Firefox, call up Google or Yahoo! and begin to look for information, have you ever wondered what is happening behind the scenes of the words or phrases you entered into the search window?

The instant you type in your search request and hit enter, search engines, like Google, are scanning their databases for the best possible match; and almost instantly what you see on the results page, are links to the most relevant sites that the search engine has indexed.

So, how do the search engines build their databases, or indexes? A search engine finds information for its database by getting the information from their web crawlers, spiders, or robots.

A web crawler (spider or robot) is a program or automated script, which browses URLs (web pages) on the Internet in an automated manner. Web crawlers are mainly used by search engines to index downloaded pages for search term relevancy and for automated maintenance tasks on a website, such as checking links or validating HTML code. The more relevant the site’s content is to keywords or search terms, the easier it is for search engine robots to crawl, index, and rank the site.

Most web developers and even some seasoned search engine optimization (SEO) professionals tend to forget the overall purpose of the search engines, which is this: search engines are designed to find the best results for users and to provide the user with a compelling experience.

Its common knowledge amongst developers and optimizers that good SEO practices are to make a site more user-friendly for visitors, and that the site needs to be easy to find; when you build a site that focuses on the needs of your audience, you are simultaneously building a site that search engines can easily crawl and will be interested in.

Compelling Content For Users and For Crawlers

Creating compelling and useful content will likely have the greatest impact on your website’s popularity. Internet users know what they are looking for, and with good content, you can make sure they find it! The one thing we know for certain is that when an end-user can find what they are looking for quickly, and they like what they find, they will tell others about it. They spread the word through blog posts, social media services, emails, forums, and many other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site’s reputation with both users and the leading search engines, and it rarely comes without quality content.

When creating your content, keep in mind that search engines love providing web users with relevant results, so the more relevant the content is to the end user, the more likely it will eventually be served up by the search engine to that end user.

In the vast field of optimization, you can’t learn enough about the proper use of keywords and keyword research. When composing your site s content, it is not always the best practice to focus on the most competitive term in your copy. Search terms that are overused create redundancy; and just because a term is used frequently, it doesn’t mean it s the best available term and certainly doesn’t make it the most relevant to your site’s mission. By focusing on the less frequently used keywords, it is possible to gain a significant amount of traffic overall from several longer, lower search volume phrases.

Just as important as getting the search engines to give you a high ranking, you want web users to visit your site for a reason, and that reason is to do business with you. So once you get them to your site, you will need to create content that will keep them there. One of the most effective ways to do that is by creating content as if you were your own audience, your own customer. If you were your own customer, what search terms would you use? What intriguing piece of information would keep you on your site and make you want to do business with yourself? Thinking in terms of your customer’s needs, will help you create content that search engines will gladly index and share, resulting in higher ranking and a more defined audience.

Another way to develop quality content for both users and search engines is to know who your competitors are. Once you identify your competitors by using common keywords and phrases, you will discover how to make your keyword list more focused to your business, and at the same time you will build your own unique image. You don t want to look exactly like your competition, so do your homework and create your own search engine identity.

Tony Mandarich owns & operates Mandarich LLC, a full-service web media business specializing in web site development & optimization, video production, photography & Internet marketing.

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