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Content. The Duh or the Web

People go to the web to get information. (Some go for dirty pictures and a tick or two beyond that but for the sake of this blog and my Mother's memory, we will stick with information.) That information, from your point of view can come in two forms:

Originally created
Borrowed

Originally created information is good because it takes you down the road from Dorkville to Expert Road. I hesitate to use the word expect because of the definition. Ex is a has-been. Spert is a drip under pressure. But none the less, you need to show your stuff in order to sell your stuff. God, that sentence would have my Mother looking at me with the stern Norwegian stare.

None the less, you become an expert from what you know or what you think you know. This blog is a case in point and supports the latter more than the former. Publishing is a way to become an expert. The written word, or the recorded word, leads to believability until challenged and proven wrong. Even then, the challenge often goes unnoticed.

So, how do you publish? Simple. Get out a little notebook and write down all of the stuff that people ask your opinion about. Those items are clues to what could be good content for you. For example, you are in the lawn care business and people always ask you about when you should fertilize and what and how much should you use? Write the story. Be sure to note any disclaimers which could change the results, however. Print to a .pdf file. Save and upload. Keyword it. Put a few photos in it. Bingo. Content. The spider sees a link. That's good.

But, let's say you don't want to write the story. What now? You have two choices. Have some write it for you with your name, called ghostwriting or find the story on line already written by someone and create a link to it. Be sure the link won't cause you to lose any business to their expertise.

You can find willing and mostly able writers at odesk, guru, and ifreelance.com (These are examples of embedded harmless, informational links!)

Keep in mind, lots of the writers you find on those sites are NOT native American writers. That means their story might need a lot of editing to get it to sound like an American wrote it.  Look for native English writers in your search and check the samples and work history on the site.

A note about links....

Our little blind spider likes a lot of superhighways to the center of the web and that is the function of links. Links are like little superhighways to the center of your site. The more links, the easier for the spider to find, the more valuable the site. There are folks who spend their day looking for good links to their site and have thousands of them, That makes the site more valuable and as a result, ad revenues for that site go up. The site owner really doesn't give a crap (or sorry Mom) about original content, he /she wants you to click on an advertising link found between and around all of the content. That's where payday comes from and at the top of the heap is a six figure reward. Nice.

Bottom line...content creates interest and links. Links create spider interest and spider interest moves your site up toward that coveted #1 position. You create links by creating original content or by borrowing it and creating the link. If that doesn't work for you, wait for your mom to leave the house and start selling porn.

Up Next

Content. What is it and how should you handle it?

Keywords...the flies of the net

Well we have worked this little blind spider to death making this big web and having him (her) find the way to the center. It's dinner time.  After all, why hunt just to hunt?

Dinner is a fly. They show up and fly around until they clunk into the web and the sticky part gets them all tangled up. They gyrate like Brittney Spears on a comeback tour and all of a sudden, the spider notices.  Off he goes. I will spare you the details.

Keywords are like flies. They attract the searching spider and off he (she) goes until the keyword is found. Our Google and Yahoo friends make can make the keywords bigger and more tasty for a small fee and really get that spider to zero in. More on that later.

Keywords are the food for the web. You drop them like little flies into the web and hopefully the spider will follow them right to the center of your web. If the keywords are relevant to your site, the spider may nibble around a little bit and make a note that things were good at your place. Back in Spider Central, that note is taken into account and your page moves up the list of possibilities to perhaps the #1 place to go for this keyword. Nice job!

So, you think, all I have to do is plaster my best keywords all over the place and the spider will zip right in. That worked in the early days. In fact, some web designers were accused of putting hundreds of keywords on the page in the same color as the background so the reader (you) would not see them and the spider would.  No wonder the little guy went blind.

In an early move to Obama care, that practice was outlawed and anyone doing it went to web page jail.
Today, minimum usuage of keywords should be at least three and maximum around eleven.

Remember that code panel we talked about in the prior post? Well there is a title section. Make sure your keyword(s) shows up in there. This spider is hoofing around at light speed and the title is like a "rest area this exit" sign. Also include keywords in the headline and some say, make them bold in the copy block.

Once you have done that, you should start moving up the favorites list. But don't expect overnight success. It may take six months just to get your new page indexed.

You have to be committed to a long term, personally involved project for long term web success. If that's not your cup of tea, or tasty fly, then maybe a nice store on ebay is the thing for you. If you like micro management or can afford a good tech guy with good references, the web can be a lot of fun.

After all, how often do you get to take on a blind spider?

Codes and links...the magic spider foot

We have yet to see the spider make his (or her) appearance on my web.  Well, today is the day! But, I am not going to make this easy for the spider. I have a blind spider doing this web.

Poor little guy. Can you imagine a big sticky web and not being able to see where you were going?  You would be taking different paths all of the time and never get to the heart of the matter. Sorry about the cliche.

But, that is exactly what you are up against if you don't have a roadmap built into your web site. The roadmap is code. The code is like a white cane for our little friend and it allows him to find his way from someone's question to your answer.

What does code look like? Go to any of your favorite web sites, make that a competitor's website. See the "view" choice on your browser's navigation bar? Click on it and go down to "source." Open that and a panel should open up to the right with a lot of programming stuff on it. That's source code.

Most of that code has to do with the design of the site and it tells the web where the pictures  and copy blocks are and what is in them. But, there is one area that is white cane country. It's the "meta" tag area. If you look carefully at that block, you will see a title for the page; a description of the page; and REALLY important, the keywords YOUR competitor thinks are important to the spider. This is spider food. Without it, you may as well be one of the holes between the webbing. The only way someone will find you is to stumble across your site or specifically look for you. Mr. blind spider will zoom right by.

I imagine some of you who already have a web page are looking at your code right now. If you don't see the meta block, and someone designed and hosts your site, a phone call is in order.  Keep your cool.

If you designed your site using software like Site Spinner or Dreamweaver you can go back and edit the information in a choice that takes you to a menu choice something like "title."  Keep in mind, this is tricky writing. A spider doesn't have much time to mess around so prepositions and punctuation are no-nos. Crisp minimum writing is the key here.

And speaking of key, you will need some keywords, spider food if you will. Where do you find key words?  Enter the Gorilla of the Web...Google. They are a very helpful Gorilla, however. They have a free keyword tool you can use to help you develop your unique keywords. Using the tool, you enter words you think are important to your business and the keyword tool will search out a ton of words that are exact or close to your keywords. Google will also tell you how many searches are going on for those words. The more searches, the more interest by potential customers, and the better your chance will be to move up in the Google ranking and get noticed.

A word of caution here. There are companies out there who will guarantee a number 1 Google ranking. In my humble option, those are scams. They charge you a bunch and then buy a Google ad with a keyword you agree on and presto! You get the number 1 Google ranking. For a day maybe. For an hour maybe.  But they delivered. Ad expires and you are back to square one.

Getting the number 1 Google position for "free" takes a lot of work. It's a game for people who like strategy games like Chess an Poker. It takes work and patience. Did I mention that it may take up to six months to get listed in these web engines?

The other way to get the ball rolling is to "buy" the keyword from Google. Google will tell you what the current bid is for the word and you decide what you want to spend. Bid more and you get higher notice. Bid less and you get a lower position. You will need to sign up for Google Adword to get a good understanding of the process. Think of Adword as a big bullhorn for our little blind spider..."OVER HERE!!!"

Bottom line, that blind little spider is not going to find you without some help. You need the "right" code, the "right" keywords, and the right content to bring him over for a little nip-along with the customers who are looking for you and trusting him to find you.

Good luck!