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by Govind Dhar
'Make mine a Hollywood blockbuster please!'
When it comes to taking a brief for a new website, most customers start using words like 'flashy', 'interactive', 'animation' and 'sticky'. Very few focus on the copy on their websites - the aim always seems to be more functionality, widgets, banners, flash presentations…
Fortunately or unfortunately, the x factor on any website is plain and simple 'words'.
When you're in the word business and you try to explain this to customers, they tend to greet you with the sideways head cocked look of a confused canine.
This is a particularly frequent bugbear in the world of website construction.
Customers are invariably more interested in the visual and sensory elements of a website. They want flash animation and helper icons, logo cursors and widgets, tools, downloads, games and advertisements - anything that makes their site become an 'experience' rather than a conspicuous blare box of company info.
Which is a fair point. Of course you don't want your website to be an overwhelming mass of words, but it does beg the question 'How important are the words on my website? Shouldn't I focus on making it sexy instead?'
'Look at Coke's website - it's interactive, it's funky, it's cool. It makes me want to linger around, download things, explore...'
Yes. But isn't that the whole point? It's Coke's website.
By having a website, Coke is simply reinforcing its mega-rich ad campaign. It isn't really looking to generate business or establish a definitive market presence by having and maintaining a website. It is not as important for Coke to use their web dollars wisely and gain a head and shoulders vantage over their web competitors as it is for you.
Q. 'So what will separate my website from the rest?'
A. Words.
Why? Because this is how people come upon websites in cyberspace:
- your massive ad campaign caught their attention
- you told them to visit it
- somebody else told them to visit it
- it turned up on the top 10 results of a search engine
Minus a fantastic reputation and some effective ad spend, you're likely to get most of your virtual visitor footfall from point number 4. Get to the top 10 of the search results page and you're immediately in the running for:
- a multitude of site hits
- a multitude of product and service requests
- a multitude of business partnership enquiries
- significant brand exposure
- reinforced brand visibility
- increased ROI
'And how do I do that?'
'How do I get a mention in the 'Top 10' of a search results page?'
You wouldn't believe me if I told you. WORDS.
Words Are Your Friends
Here's my question to you?
Do people search for websites based on how popular, flashy or sticky they are?
Do you go to the search box of Google and type 'I'll have a website that's interactive and informative, with some cool flash animation, not too many ad banners and a load of free downloads?'
No. You search by words. Key words. And it's by key words that Web Crawlers scan and rank websites. The popularity and relevance of a website also gets factored into the equation, and ultimately the most popular sites are relevant because of their copy.
So now you know that words are important. How you use them in your web programming and how you use them on your site is what determines how far up the search list your website will go. Sites do not get points for their animation, stickiness or colour coordination. They get them for cold, calculated and scientific usage of words.
Get the trick of using words right and you'll be hitting number one before you can say 'What is a Web Crawler?'
What is a Web Crawler?
Web crawlers are also known as bots. They are programs or automated scripts that trawl the world wide web to scan, rate and rank all the websites floating about. Search engines rely on web crawlers to give them all their information so that when you search for used cars in your neighbourhood, the information collected by the web crawler is used to throw results back at you.
Search Engines use software known as web crawlers to scan websites according to the content and words within the programming of websites. Based on algorithms and complex equations, these bots 'crawl' sites to see how relevant their content is to the related search criteria.
For example, if I look for 'tailor made holiday packages', my search engine will list websites which have the most updated and relevant words related to the words, 'tailor+made+holiday+packages'.
Websites that are constantly updated with fresh and unique information, ie words related to the search criteria, will be the ones that climb the rankings on search pages. For the above example, destination reviews, hotels, quotes, food reviews, documentation info, safety and travel tips, all help make a travel site more unique and therefore more attractive to web crawlers. The more detailed the information, the more a search engine will link to a site that fits the bill.
Avoid Junk
Web crawlers treat the repetitive use of words as junk. So if everything in your repertoire is 'wide-ranging', 'cost-effective' and 'customer-oriented', you will soon start to slide by the wayside. Crawlers also look for innovatively used titles and descriptive met tags (bits of data in website HTML code that give information about the website) where words in relation to each other get coughed up by search engines. For best results, use meta tag information, titles and web copy wisely. 'Specificity' is the mantra here.
And remember, the more distinct your copy is, so much the better. Web crawlers are sophisticated enough to pick up similarities in copy across websites, so if you've just modified the same information everyone else is using you're likely to sink lower and lower in the site listings. Updated, unique and expertly written copy, along with related updates in the meta tags and HTML code on your site will help it climb the search results pages.
Stay Focused
You have to keep your content relevant to possible search criteria. This means that if you run a site for videogames, focus on talking about videogames. Specialise in topics in and around the main subject and that will help you in the long run. If you include a variety of non-related information, such as the items in your garage you wish to sell, you're in jeopardy of losing out when the crawler bots coming calling. There was a time where such a tactic as all-inclusiveness would work, but these days, web crawlers, programmers and surfers have become far savvier. The hope of being netted by web crawlers for anything and everything is futile so it's better to focus on well crafted and finely written content that relates to your business focus.
Work Backwards
Now that you know how crawler bots 'think', try working backwards.
Think of the kinds of phrases people might use to search for a company that offers your products and services. Include geographic locations, prices, budgets, specialties or any sort of descriptions that people will enter when looking for a company that offers your type of solutions. As trite as it may sound, put yourself in the mind of your customer and create content that they will look for.
You can also hone in on what your website offers and think of related subjects that might lead people there. For example if your company offers organic fruit and vegetables, try including titles and content related to that subject area - vegan foods, vegetarianism, dieting, healthy foods, weight loss, Franken foods, GM foods, Food and Agriculture Authority standards, etc. All of these subjects are directly or indirectly related to your core offering. By including content on each, you not only diversify the links to your website, but you also make more in-roads to your website. With unique, fresh and interesting content, your website becomes a shoo-in for attention from those friendly neighbourhood web crawlers.
So when a copywriter tells you that words are important for your website, trust them and you'll avoid having to look like Scooby Doo again.
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