Search Engines are the gatekeepers of the web. They are a necessity considering the overwhelming amount of data available to internet users.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has taken on a mystical aura akin to the Alchemy of the middle ages. Sometimes little understood by those who even practice it, and a magic bullet (turning base metal into gold) for the public at large, thanks to outlandish claims by some on the web of what Search Engine Optimization really is and how it’s accomplished.
Effective SEO requires three things.
- A knowledge of how search engine spiders ‘look’ at a page
- An understanding of how ’smart’ search engines can be
- Patience
The more specific your page is, the more search engines like Google will ‘love’ it. Make it easy for Google to figure out what your web page is about using specific language and even geographical references (such as ‘Los Angeles Copywriter’, instead of ‘Copywriter’) and it will reward you with a high placement in its search listings.
A search engine takes into account several things. First, is the pages title. Make sure the title of the page expresses its contents. Secondly, any subheads and <alt> tag information should be similarly specific. Third, it sometimes looks through the body text of your site. So now you can see why keeping specific and on topic is the most effective way to get Google’s attention. It’s part of an effective copywriters skills to integrate these principles into the copy they write, while still producing copy that is not awkward for the visitor to read and converts to actions by the visitor, be it signing up for an email list or buy a product.
Don’t try to trick the engine by hiding repetitive text on your web page to increase the amount a term is mentioned. Engines will figure out these little tricks and remove you from their listings.
