Websites for Users not Search engines
If your business has a website or you are thinking about getting one you would have probably encountered some of the statements below.
You need more ‘keywords’!
You need more content for Google to search!
You need to have keywords in the ‘Meta’ data!* (see below for this Myth is busted)
You must have a blog as its good for your search rankings!
You need to increase your keyword density!
Mostly these are given with the best intentions but can be misleading – a little knowledge etc.
I believe that this is the wrong way to approach improving/building your website. It can be very easy to get fixated on website traffic and hits that you end up losing site of the main purpose of the website and the quality of a users experience using the site.
I have seen it time and time again, when a website’s content goes from being great for the websites visitor’s e.g. content is engaging, welcoming, informative, interesting etc. Then after an SEO overhaul of new content, it’s filled with keywords and blocks of repetitive text. Leaving the visitor ill informed, irritated and uninspired.
Striking a balance
With good SEO it is always a careful balancing act between what is technically good e.g. highly searchable content with lots of keywords phrases and what is good for the user e.g. relevant information, well written easy to understand copy etc.
When it comes down to it your website is there to be used my people not robots and they should dictate the content. A website is not much use if a 1000 people visit it a day only to find it unusable and then go away again.
Google on SEO
To use an example Google has always stated that it puts its users before everything else, providing user relevant results to what they are searching for. Google are helpful to the SEO community but will always put the needs of their users first.
Meta Keyword – The Myth
A good example of this is the myth of key words in a web pages Meta data. Google will ignore these keywords if they are there making them a useless edition to the web page.
For further information from the horse’s mouth see this article and video from Google central: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
If you have found this interesting and would like more information and advice please get in touch.
Duncan M. MacGregor
Top Duck
Direct: (+44) 07922 441244
Work: (+44) 0207 558 8997
duncan@duckonwater.co.uk
www.duckonwater.co.uk
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