I'm always going on about the importance of great content. It really is the most important thing you'll put on your website.
Sure, the way you format your AdSense units is important. The affiliate products you choose to promote will affect your earnings. The design and layout of your page will determine whether it looks professional and invites users to stick around and come back for more... or send them screaming back where they came from.
But it's the information you supply and the way you supply it that will determine whether or not you succeed as a publisher.
That's what makes search engine optimization such a challenge.
Enter a search term at Google, and you can be sure that about half the responses on the first page will be completely useless. They're perfectly optimized. But they're still completely useless.
Optimizing your site to get top spot at Google or any other search engine is very easy. Put the right keywords in lots of places, put up plenty of pages and spread your links far and wide, and you'll soon start to climb up the rankings.
But stuff your pages with keywords so that your content becomes repetitive and dull to read, and you'll get lots of users... who leave fast.
That's a very common mistake. I'm forever reaching sites in which the same word appears half a dozen times in one three-line paragraph. A page like that just tells me it was written to be read by robot not by a user. I'm certainly not going to look at any more pages on that site. And I won't come back either.
You don't want just to have a well-optimized site. You want to have a site that's both optimized and popular.
Frankly, when I'm weighing up those two things, I tend to lean towards popular. That doesn't mean I don't think about optimization as I'm building a site. But I think more about creating Web pages that are a pleasure to read. If I can get that right, people in similar fields will link to me. My site will get talked about. Users who reach my site will come back regularly and they'll tell their friends.
And I'll reach the top of the search engines too. It might take me a little longer than if I'd stuffed my pages with keywords but the results will be a lot better.
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
December 31, 2006 03:24 AM
Help wrote a 2 page letter
on my e/mail site thinking I could send it to you. Cant find your e/m addrees can you send it to me. Thanks!! Jack
December 31, 2006 03:26 AM
Help wrote a 2 page letter
on my e/mail site thinking I could send it to you. Cant find your e/m addrees can you send it to me. Thanks!! Jack