Search engines have an entirely new approach to indexing pages. Here’s what you need to do.
For years search engines have been spammed and clogged by gateway pages, and they’ve grown sick to death of it. Gateway pages diminish the genuine usefulness of the search engines to the online community, and ultimately cut into their bottom line.
Which is why over the past 16-18 months the search engines have aligned themselves with an entirely new approach to indexing pages that relies less on keyword density, and more on actual site ‘relevance’. If you are now using the popular software package that is all about gateway page generation, listen up:
It’s time for you to respond to the new search engine environment and leave this technique behind. In the near future, you will not want the stigma of gateway, doorway, or hook pages attached to your online business. This approach is clearly trying to do an end run around search engine systems, and they don’t like it. If today this is the bedrock of your Web marketing, consider this:
As the Internet grows 20 times over the next five years, why should search engines keep making room for you? Continuing with this approach could easily get your site shed from the search engines forever, just like a snake sheds dead skin. The following are the two techniques you must master for the new search engine environment, now and in the future.
Theme Indexing
The concept is simple: focus your entire site around a single, potent theme, and that’s how your Web business will be indexed by the search engines. The challenge for most sites is that this goes far beyond grabbing a keyword-specific domain name, or posting the same basic set of meta tags on each site page.
In fact, this is all about your unique selling proposition (USP), and the reflection of your USP throughout the content and code of your site. (For more on how to develop your powerful USP, access the free USP Questionnaire here: mailto:usp@marketstart.net)
Think about it this way: if you want to place among the top search engine returns for a particular keyword or keyphrase, then build your site entirely around this keyword or keyphrase. Take a two-step approach to writing this type of site, as follows:
1. Begin with a creative, word-rich first draft as you develop your site pages
2. For the second draft go back in and tighten the reins: get rid of synonyms, and replace them with the particular keyword or keyphrase you must convey.
Note: Because you still must create a site offering visitors an easy, intelligent read, there is indeed ‘art’ in finding the right balance between writing and relevancy. Start practicing now and get good at this, because it’s a secret of Web writing you need to apply.
Link Relevancy
Today the top search engines assign values to the links from other sites to your site. Links from important, related, and relevant sites have come to mean everything, and links generated by the FFAs now mean very little. Search engines weigh the value of these links, and factor these into their ranking algorithms. This is one reason why very similiar sites to the eye can quickly leapfrog each other in the continual search engine game.
Link relevancy is now key to your success with the search engines. So find important sites that tell the online world your site is important, too. These key sites certainly include the Internet directories, but it is increasingly important for sites to mount their own industry-specific linkage campaigns.
You can extrapolate (or look into your crystal ball) and say the future of the Internet will certainly include more industry-specific search engines, serving niche communities, communicating with niche audiences of their own. Like natural selection, it is bound to happen.
Right now the key for your Web business and search engine rankings is to distill the message of link relevancy and theme indexing into this simple formula:
Words power the Web.
Your words power your Web site success.
——-
Article by Scott T. Smith of Web Presence Group
http://www.webpresencegroup.com
Web Sites that Sell
