Intentionally launching a Web site that could not be found in
any of the major search engines would be a lot like opening
a mail-order business and not publishing your phone number.
On the Internet, the major search engines such as Yahoo, AltaVista,
and Snap are the equivalent of the yellow pages. No matter how
pretty and interactive your new Web site, if it can't be found
in one or more of the major search engines, you're the proud
owner of a billboard in the woods.
A good friend of mine, a professional copywriter, just launched
a great-looking Web site -- AKBWriting.com. She spent months
preparing the right words to describe her service offering.
She solicited testimonials from her satisfied clients - I'm
one of them. She sent out a broadcast e-mail to everyone whom
she had ever come into contact with. There was just one problem.
Her site is practically invisible to search engines. Because
of the way it's designed, the Yahoos and AltaVistas of the virtual
world -- not to mention potential customers -- will ignore it.
To give you a better understanding of search engines, we've
done a little constructive criticism of AKBWriting.com, looking
at how it uses graphics, frames, and keywords to attract search
engines.
Site Assessment: AKBWriting.com
Problem 1: Content on main page is in a graphic
Copy on the main page is created as a graphic, not HTML text.
The first page of the Web site describes the service offering
and lists contact information. Unfortunately, the Web site
designer chose a graphical representation of this message.
Search engines cannot read text contained in graphics; they
can only read HTML text. If the Web site design does not include
text, the search engine has no content to index. The Web designer
sought to overcome this problem by including copy in a NO
FRAMES tag, a useful tactic, but not as valuable as making
text readily available to feed to the search engines.
Problem 2: Frames are used
The remainder of AKBWriting.com uses frames, meaning the
site is displayed in a split screen. Most sites use frames
to keep important links, navigation, and contact information
static on the left side of the screen as visitors scroll through.
But search engines have problems with frames. First, only
about half of the search engines can traverse split screens
to index all of the site's real content displayed on the many
pages on the right-side frame. Second, frames prevent people
from setting a bookmark in their browser to a particular page
within the site. For the same reason, major search engines
are often unable to link to internal pages.
While several search engines now claim to support framed
pages, most search engine positioning professionals tend to
agree: "Don't use frames in your Web design unless you
absolutely have to use them." If you insist on having
a framed Web site, the NO FRAMES tag is your best hope for
getting listed. For a lengthy discourse on how best to implement
a NO FRAMES strategy, check out this article at Search Engine
Watch.
Problem 3: Not trapping "404 Not Found"
errors
Web pages change. People add pages to their Web site and
remove pages they've changed. However, if an internal page
of Web site attains a high ranking but is taken down at some
later date, what happens to that ranking? Well, it remains,
and anyone who visits that page from the search engine is
served a "404 NOT FOUND" error. Sooner or later
the search engine's automated agent revisits the page to see
if it still exists. When it sees it doesn't, it instantly
drops the page listing and ranking from its index. However,
a little-known switch can be flipped on most servers that
will cause the server to present a predetermined page instead
of any 404 NOT FOUND error. For example, click on the following
link:
http://www.inc.com/badabingbadaboom
You get a message from inc.com that the page was not found.
But inc.com navigation appears at the top, so there is still
hope for finding the page you are looking for. However, try
the same experiment on the AKB Writing site:
http://www.akbwriting.com/badabingbadaboom
A 404 NOT FOUND error is displayed -- a dead end in cyberspace.
Problem 4: Poor keyword selections in the keyword
metatag and commas separating keywords in this tag.
The keyword metatag on AKBwriting.com is shown below:
meta name="keywords" content="copywriting,
writing, content, marketing, communications, freelance copywriter,
web copy, Alexandria Brown, Ali Brown, AKB, newsletters, brochures,
e-newsletters"
The words included in the keyword metatag are good, but separating
them with commas is not the best strategy. That makes search
engines consider them individually, but most people do not
search on single-word phrases anymore. (Just think of how
many sites pop up when you search on "business,"
for example.) If the commas are left out of the keyword metatag,
the search engine will consider several possible combinations
of keywords. That could generate additional unanticipated
traffic. So, AKBWriting.com would likely get more mileage
out of the following:
meta name="keywords" content="copywriting
writing content marketing communications freelance copywriter
web copy Alexandria Brown Ali AKB newsletters brochures e-newsletters"
Stay tuned for the next three parts of this series, from
Frederick Marckini of iProspect.com.
II: Final Keyword Target Universe
III: Site Remediation and Optimization
III: Search Engine and Directory Submission
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