Are Webmasters Working for the Search Engines?
It’s sickening.
No, really. It’s pathetic, and we all know it. Most of us have been at that point, or we’re still hanging around that point where we think we can Trick search engines into listing us above our competition. We actually go to great lengths to design our sites for the search engines instead of our readers.
Many webmasters will put creativity aside, and hire cheap writers to put together hundreds of (worthless) posts for their blogs. Others ignore content altogether, and spend most of their time trying to develop inbound links to their valueless sites.
Well, it’s the only way to get noticed in the ever-growing blogosphere… it’s our only choice. Right?
An Alternative That Makes Sense
There is an alternative you know, and it makes a lot of sense. What happens when you put away all your dirty tricks, get-rich-fast schemes, etc. and focus on making your blog as helpful as possible to your viewers?
What I am proposing, is that rather than spending time finding popular niches where you can trick search engines into sending you lots of traffic — you spend time working, researching, discussing, and writing valuable content, which you are passionate about, for your users.
Let’s take a look at some advantages of this approach:
One Time Visitors Become Repeat Viewers
If folks come to your blog, don’t find what they need, and don’t feel like your site is catered to them in the first place, chances are they won’t be stopping by again anytime soon. Sure, you may get your rankings up there for a short while, but you’re viewership and user loyalty won’t sustain itself.
When you focus your efforts on making your blog as useful as possible to the viewer, you’re much more likely to see that viewer return in the future - perhaps even on a day to day basis. You might not see that immediate boost of traffic, but you’ll be creating a base to build upon. A strong foundation leads to a larger, longer lasting blog over time.
Others Start to Link To you
When you have helpful posts, and a website that looks more friendly to a viewer, other sites tend to be more interested in linking to you. Sure - you may not get quite as many visitors from Google or the likes, but you’ll make up for those with the referrals you’ll start to see from other websites.
Chances are, if a user clicks a link on a website, there is some form of trust between that user and the webmaster/editor/developer of that site. By extension, that loyalty may carry over in part to your own blog — something a search engine can’t do just yet. So to close this point — you’re gaining more quality links to your blog, and at the same time, building a loyal userbase.
You Start Linking To Others
Wait a minute! How does that help me? Remember, this isn’t about helping yourself. We’re aiming to please our viewers. If you notice something that you’re viewers might enjoy on another blog or website, it really won’t hurt your own blog to send a link their way.
Actually, linking to others can be quite a good way to show how in-tune you are with your niche as a whole. It could lead more people to your blog in the long run - so this could end up being helpful to you after all.
Pageviews Go Up, Bounces Go Down
It’s common sense. When you’ve got a website that’s simply awesome, folks stick around longer. Granted, usability will play a factor into just how long they stick around, but overall, your content will keep readers interested in what else you have to offer.Pageviews are a great way to measure the usefulness and usability of your blog. If you’re playing tricks on the search engines, you probably won’t see a stunning Pageview/Visitor ratio.
For more on Usability, see our 9 Easy Usability Improvements for Blogs.
Google is Smarter Than You or I Will Ever Be
The job of a search engine is to find the most accurate results for a question input by a user (a search). Can you really convince yourself that in the long run, you’re going to outwit some of the brightest minds in this day and age who are programming these search engines?I didn’t think so.Fact is, you might actually be able to get a great search engine ranking really quick using some tactful strategies, but unless there is substance behind your blog, it’s going to be short-lived. And when you drop in the rankings, your viewership will take a very hard hit.
When you build for the user though, you won’t take a hard hit if you suffer in rankings thanks to your strong foundation. You’ll see improvements in the long run actually, and a lot of the new viewers you see from Search Engines will probably stick around, and perhaps even bookmark you.
What Works Best For You?
Are you an experienced webmaster? What have you found to be the best ways of finding (and sustaining) traffic?
9 Easy Usability Improvements for Blogs
The Cons of Video Tutorials
Using Click Heatmaps to Understand Your Viewers
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So very true, I much prefer reading blogs of people who are nice, helpful easy to talk to etc. Also, for me its not important where I am on Google etc. I do fine with traffic without even bothering about search engines.
I think my focus is on making sure that people who would want to see my content get the chance to see my content, so that means people sharing or promoting posts which they find useful to other people who might find it useful. If your content was good enough to be at the top of the search engine then it will creep its way up there surely?
I’m no expert in this area by any means, but i do think like you that people can get a little carried away with it.
@liam: Definitely — I mean, of course you should be apply standards in your web work (you know, pages should be titled so that folks and SE’s know where they are, and all that jazz) Search Engines WILL index you properly in the long run.
It’s there job.
Too often, I think webmasters try to do the job FOR the search engine — which as I stated in my article is really only a short term solution.
Great post David! The key to getting traffic and loyal subscribers is offering useful content.
I wish I could get our bounce rate down. It hovers at 50%. I’ve worked really hard at putting the most important content as the focal point (portfolio). It’s been very successful in terms of getting people to those pages and we have seen an increase in form submissions but the dang bounce rate never changes.
Interestingly enough, our client sites do not suffer from this same problem, just ours.
Great post. However, I wouldn’t call this an SEO strategy, since it’s not really SEO, in fact, it’s more anti-SEO. But it’s this anti-method that actually brings long term gain
@John: Well, taking into account WHAT kind of site it is definitely has a lot to do with Bounce Rate. There are lots of factors really: Where is the traffic coming from? How targeted is the traffic? What percentage of the audience coming in does the content target? How well does the page convey the points to the audience? etc
A page about selling cars is not going to interest someone looking for cat pictures. A page in “StumbleUpon” is likely to have a much higher bounce rate because of the high number of come-and-goers. A page selling services will have a higher bounce rate than a page offering free services.
But really, I would not say 50% is a high bounce rate — especially if that is for your whole site (given that it is a portfolio site, even more-so). I’d say you should focus on individual pages, and monitor each of those pages bounce rates. Make tweaks and see if you can improve the individual rates for those pages
@Nick | Resource Pile: It’s a vastly different approach to SEO than what’s common. Spending time on content for optimal search engine results over the long-term
I’m trying a little sneaky trick will let you know if it has any success
But seriously good material is the key!
Yes! great article. It’s so common sense but I’m glad it’s being said. So many spend time gaming the system that they don’t focus on the content. Even if you do everything else to drive traffic it doesn’t matter if the content is useless. Thanks.
As far as I’m concerned, what you’ve detailed here (good content) IS SEO by the very definition. Good content, targeted at what your given audience is interested in and searches for, is “optimized” for search engines because it’s optimized for your users. Taking it another level (a just as important level) is “wrapping” that good content in clean, valid and semantic (X)HTML. For example, headings (hx) and bullets (ul) aid the reader in scanning, but Google and other search engines give greater weight to the text in those headings and lists. And staying away from tables and “tag soup” in your markup makes it easier for SEs to spider your content (faster), which can help with search engine rankings. Lightweight, semantic code — coupled with great content — on my employer’s sites (not to mention my own) has done wonders for our SERs.
Huh, I know there is no one right way to do something. But of course if You enjoy what You are writing - You will got better results than any other. It makes sense. Yeah, maybe too many people get worried about SEO more than just the one basic rule - write good content. Thanks!
great article. And yes you must catered what your viewers need so they will come back everytime. Good quality post is the main key.
Hi,
Nice post here, a very interesting one aswell, and one that I totally agree with, I definately think this is the way forward to keep visitors coming back to your website, and with that they are most likely to spread the word, and build up your visitor count.
I agree, people should be writing for human visitors rather than search engines. The objective of search engines is to emulate human users. Hence writing for humans is a good search engine optimization technique.
However, we also need to consider how search engine works. At least, we should avoid some of the biggest SEO mistakes like using frames and pure flash websites.
Good post! Good content is key to attracting loyal visitors in the long term.
I fully agree with you in that instead of putting time and effort trying to “work the system” , rather invest your time in developing good content and usability.
Excellent article. I’ve seen people go crazy over stuff like this, going to big seminars trying to find the real “secret” to getting up in the rankings. I don’t even think about search engines because there is no way I’m going to get the top place in a phrase like “Photoshop Tutorials” or something like that. I just design and code the way I think that the W3C wanted.
Shouldn’t it be “A SEO Strategy” as opposed to “An SEO Strategy”?
@Greten: Which sort of reflects what Emily contributed to the discussion earlier. Content is the most important, but presenting it in a way that is accessible to all viewers and Search Engines shouldn’t be put aside.
Great article. It always seems the most obvious solutions are not looked upon
Great post, SEO and PPC are the only good ways to advertise anymore
I’m currently working on my portfolio and after reading your articles on blog posting and creation I’m going to have to take another good look at my design and see what I can do to improve it. I should add something to the top like an about me short version and a services paragraph as I’ll be offering webdesign services and coding of it as well (as in PHP and Mysql CMS style coding). I know a real surprise and really new on the net but I’m not really a orginial person. Have a look at my design if you find the time to (it’s under construction and the placeholder posts are in Dutch) and maybe you could give me a few pointers.
Great points, people all too often design web sites around the search engines and not the users. You will notice that sites appearing in top rankings for Extremely Popular terms provide relevant content and user experiences.
Great post. I think that helping others is the key to success. Having the right solution to the visitors problem, they will come again next time they have another problem. It’s simple. But what most webmasters can’t stand is the time it takes before you see results from all the SEO.
That’s right, we, the perfunctory and so called webmasters think too much of the search engines instead of the people actually whom the site is made for and the funniest thing is we sometime try to outwit geniuses like google which should be ruled out. Thanks a lot for pointing out the flaws and reminding us the things we should actually do. Issue of back links do really divert people like us from our main job and concentrate to the blogs to add their links. But here I’m writing this for appreciating this nice post and nothing else. Thanks again
Nice article, I try to link to as many website as i can.