It has been a while since search engine optimization entered the mainstream and everyone and their mouse has started offering SEO services. But what is it about search engine optimization that should site owners care about?
What is SEO?
By definition, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is optimizing a site (or a page) for search engines (some may interpret the title as optimizing the search engines themselves, but that’s another story). When optimizing a site, the following factors may be taken into account:
· site crawlability (how easy the site is spidered by the search engine bots)
· the right keywords after keyword research
· correct keyword placement
· links from topical websites
· links with relevant text in the link (anchor) text
Naturally enough, most of the factors relate to how the search engines evaluate a website and only one of them is related to the humans: the words that the potential site visitors use.
Who do we optimize the site for?
But we have to remember that we create a site for the site visitors, because they will be buying our products and using our services. So how do we make sure the site works well with humans? While site spiderability doesn’t directly affect how it is perceived by the people, other aspects may as well be optimized taking the humans into account.
Optimizing for people
As mentioned before, knowing the words your customers use to find your product is one of the main tasks, when optimizing your website. In turn, using the words your customers will relate to
is important for them to understand your offer better, which should result in more orders.
Though you may be tempted to stuff the right keywords everywhere you can, you should also remember that your visitors see the site as well. If they find it hard to read, they will leave it.
That is why having all titles, link labels and body text written for humans is vital for your site success. When arriving at your site with human-friendly text, your customers will read the site copy, be able to understand you and order your product. Of course, you need to remember search engines and know which keywords to use and where to have them. But you can have human-friendly titles instead of keyword stuffed ones, too.
When it comes to links, there’s a myth of “The more links, the better,” while in reality it should be “The more targeted traffic the link brings, the better.” When aiming at receiving targeted traffic, you automatically get links from quality topical websites (where your target audience is) and use relevant anchor text as well.
So, as you may have noticed, by focusing your efforts on optimizing your site and promotion for the humans, you gain not only basic SEO benefits, but real targeted traffic and conversions as well.
Summing up
Generally, a solid approach would be to develop your site for people and only keep search engines in the back of your mind, which will guarantee greater conversion rates. If you also consider copywriting, site usability, accessibility and credibility—all of which have to do with humans—you’ll gain the competitive advantage your online rivals may not have.
Yuri Filimonov
What is SEO?
By definition, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is optimizing a site (or a page) for search engines (some may interpret the title as optimizing the search engines themselves, but that’s another story). When optimizing a site, the following factors may be taken into account:
· site crawlability (how easy the site is spidered by the search engine bots)
· the right keywords after keyword research
· correct keyword placement
· links from topical websites
· links with relevant text in the link (anchor) text
Naturally enough, most of the factors relate to how the search engines evaluate a website and only one of them is related to the humans: the words that the potential site visitors use.
Who do we optimize the site for?
But we have to remember that we create a site for the site visitors, because they will be buying our products and using our services. So how do we make sure the site works well with humans? While site spiderability doesn’t directly affect how it is perceived by the people, other aspects may as well be optimized taking the humans into account.
Optimizing for people
As mentioned before, knowing the words your customers use to find your product is one of the main tasks, when optimizing your website. In turn, using the words your customers will relate to
is important for them to understand your offer better, which should result in more orders.
Though you may be tempted to stuff the right keywords everywhere you can, you should also remember that your visitors see the site as well. If they find it hard to read, they will leave it.
That is why having all titles, link labels and body text written for humans is vital for your site success. When arriving at your site with human-friendly text, your customers will read the site copy, be able to understand you and order your product. Of course, you need to remember search engines and know which keywords to use and where to have them. But you can have human-friendly titles instead of keyword stuffed ones, too.
When it comes to links, there’s a myth of “The more links, the better,” while in reality it should be “The more targeted traffic the link brings, the better.” When aiming at receiving targeted traffic, you automatically get links from quality topical websites (where your target audience is) and use relevant anchor text as well.
So, as you may have noticed, by focusing your efforts on optimizing your site and promotion for the humans, you gain not only basic SEO benefits, but real targeted traffic and conversions as well.
Summing up
Generally, a solid approach would be to develop your site for people and only keep search engines in the back of your mind, which will guarantee greater conversion rates. If you also consider copywriting, site usability, accessibility and credibility—all of which have to do with humans—you’ll gain the competitive advantage your online rivals may not have.
Yuri Filimonov
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