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!

Spiders and Webs

The guy who decided to use that metaphor for the web is (was?) a genius! (No, I don't think it was Al Gore.) Little did he know how much affect it would have on a marketing guy like me. So, without further editorializing, here's a little spider and web tour as I SEE IT!

First of all, we are not thinking of one of those little weenie webs you find between a couple of flowers. This web is a monster like the webs you find out on the farm that you can easily mistake for a hammock if you stood it on its end.

There are over 43 million web pages according to various sources and that number is growing faster than bellies at fast food joints. (On second thought, maybe it was Al Gore.)

If each one of those "spokes" going out from the center is considered a "link," then there are three trillion of those links according to Google. I guess that would be like fast-food dirty straws, huh. Marketing guys like to get an idea what the competition is like.

Good Lord. That's a bunch.

If the web just stayed like that, with spokes out from your page, that would be one thing. But there is something else to consider-those rings that go around and create the circle of our giant farm web. Let's call those distractions.

You are the "searcher" out there next to one of the anchor hay bales. You start your search and find a link that is going to take you to the center of that monster web, right to the heart of my craftily designed web site. No problem. It's just a sticky little road trip.

But suddenly, your eyes catch a nifty looking ad on the side of that link. You click on the nifty ad. You are now going around and not down at the heart of the web. That damn spoke corrupted my link. (Those are distractive little spokes to your immediate left!) Hell, you may never reach my website now. Pass the Rolaids Mr. Marketing Man.

Another Marketing Person has just won the game and distracted you (prospect) enough to get to you to start going around the web instead of taking a shot right at the heart of my message. That guy or gal did it with better creative or paid for the chance to put that distractive message right in your face. I and my client will lose unless the searcher (you) is determined to find my client's page for some specific reason

Dammit! Why did my prospect take a left (or right) turn when I had him focused in the first place? In the old days, we would throw up or hands and wonder. But today, we have some tools that can help tell us why turns get made. The prospect will even tell us what they were looking for in the first place. The key to that is, oddly enough, "keywords."  That is what the prospect typed into the search engine to find your "spoke" in the first place.  Google keeps track of those keyword in a program you can sign up for called Google Analytics,

Go ahead. Sign up. I'll wait.

Here's what you do. Type in some terms that you think your prospect will type in. (That's the Prospect's Problem in Mr. Mitchell's questions. God would he be smiling right now.) Google will then do a search of all kinds of synonyms for your keywords; provide a report of those words; and give you an idea of how much interest there is in those words. Now you know why so many former research company owners go by the new title, "hey waiter."

Remember our crafty marketing person who picked off your prospect and got them going around you instead of straight at you? They may have used keywords in their effort to do it.  Bastards!  Let the battle be joined!

You can have those keywords, too. In fact, you can out compete that sneak for them. All it takes is a little money or, maybe a lot of money. Enter Google Adwords

Go ahead, sign up.  I'll wait.

That's how you make a couple of billion dollars. Who would have thought there would be money in one word headlines!

Now play with those gizzies for a while. Next up, where does all of this stuff show up in my web site?