Search Engine Seduction: Give Them What They Want and You’ll Get Better Rankings

January 15, 2010 by Jennifer Bourn | 2 Comments

search engine robotsYour number one goal online is to be found more often by the consumers who want and need what you have to offer.

In order to be found, the search robots, spiders, or crawlers need to index your website. The search bots are scanning your HTML for content, links, images, headlines, meta tags, and more. They will then combine the information they find to determine your search engine page rankings.

In order to have your site crawled by search robots, they need a reason to visit your website and index your web pages.

The number one way to get your site indexed by the search engines is to update the content frequently and consistently. You need to be kind to the search engines by giving them what they want – fresh content, clean coding, and user friendly design.

Most website owners submit their site to the search engines when it originally launches and then they do nothing for weeks, months, or even years! They just let their site sit there like a boring, lifeless, standard, tri-fold print brochure.

Unfortunately, this strategy doesn’t work. That is why a lot of small business websites stink!

As an example, say a search bot scans your website and sets itself to come back in one week. One week later it comes back and because nothing has changed, it sets itself to come back in two weeks. Two weeks later it comes back and because nothing has changed, it sets itself to come back in four weeks.

Do you see how a lack of fresh content and website updates can hurt your search engine results?

Now, on the other hand, if in one week the search bot came back and saw new content, it may set itself to come back again in a week. A week later the bot comes back and because it saw more new content, it sets itself to come back in four days. Four days later the search robot comes back and because it sees more new content, it sets itself to come back every day.

These are just examples, but you can easily see how consistently updating website content through news rooms, press releases, blog posts, articles, and more can drastically impact how often you are found by your target market online.

Got a different idea on updating content and how it can help your business and your website? Let me know!

  • Want to use this article in your newsletter or on your website or blog?
    No problem! Simply include the citation and link below at the end of the article!

    About the Authors: Jennifer and Brian Bourn owners of Bourn Creative, a Sacramento web design company, help established businesses build beautiful, feature-rich, custom WordPress websites and blogs, design powerful, personal brands, and help their clients learn to leverage their website and blog to attract more clients than they ever thought possible.


  • Feedback and Comments:

    1. Joseph Manna, Infusionsoft

      Jan 15, 2010 at 09:12

      Great stuff, Jennifer. I agree – if you make Web surfers happy, you will make the search engines happy. You might be interested in the recent blog post I published that serves as an in-depth guide on SEO for small business.

      Link: http://bit.ly/6H6x9g

      Wishing you the best,
      Joe :-)

      Reply

      • JenBourn

        Jan 19, 2010 at 02:24

        Joe – Thanks for stopping by the blog and leaving a comment! I checked out the article and it is right on the money. It’s a valuable article and echoes exactly what I’ve been writing about regarding SEO all along. Great job!

        Reply

    Leave a Comment:



    Website