Google friendly web site

"Impatient Robot"

Your website may look easy to comprehend on the outsite, Still, it looks like this on the inside.

And search engine bots that index your page don't care about aesthetics.

The more user friendly your web page editor was, the less your attention your designer paid to details, the more convenient shortcut your programmer made, the code that the bot sees becomes overwhelmed with garbage.

The keywords your business aimed for need to be easy to find not only for people, but for the robot that tries hard to index your page as well. And this robot is quite an impatient one.

Professional designers will know the significance of using the proper keywords at the proper places, in the proper context, and the proper number of times, thus optimizing your web pages not just for humans...

But also for the program that will decide the fate of your on-line business.

Designed for use

"Less is more"

No matter what style you chose for the look of your website, professional design is not about an overwhelming amount of eye-candy, enough to give your visitors an eyesore.

Visuals need to catch, keep and direct the attention of people... directly to the actual content you wish them to see. The ultimate test for web sites is rarely judging them by appearance. It's about profits.

The same rules go for the very first and most important visitor: the robot that will sweep through your pages with a critical eye. However programs do not appreciate art at all, overlook any messages written on images, and couldn't care less about flash animation.

A professional needs to know how to pay attention to both man and machine. For you will need to please both to get your business running.

Browsing what you have

"How to write a dictionary...
... that is an entertaining novel"

As strange it may sound, dealing with people is easier. You present what you have to offer, in hope that your services or products will catch their fancy. Once visitors arrive to your home page they will quickly browse through the menu, and select the item(s) they were after. But then of course you can direct their attention from place to place, you may intimidate, negotiate, promise, or help them to make up their minds.

Dealing with the robot from a search engine is somewhat different. A programmed script won't likely care about good looking layout, rather looks for the links on the site, and tries to follow them one-by-one, in the order they were presented in the web page code.

People will use your site as a dictionary, and always know what they are looking for, and want to find everything as fast as they can.

Robots will on the contrary, flip up the first page and read through the content as if it was a novel. And since it's their given task to fit the words into the "Web's Table Of Contents" you'll need to make sure your site can be read the way you wanted it to be, in either way.

Page content

"Get fast to the point.
But be sure to make a point."

To you, keywords mentioned on the site are the content that is most important.
To the robot, the words that are most often used on your site are the most important. Used on the web page, or the site referring to the web page, and finally used as the context of off-site links, pointing to the web page.

Which leaves you the task to come up with text that will make sense to both people and the indexing programs, stuffed with the keywords you'd like to see yourself ranked for at the top.

You have to distribute the content wisely, using every single sentence as context for something that the robot may index you for. Knowing how to pack keyphrases into an already complete introduction, breaking up the text for describing your business and optimizing each page for a different purposes, that's what makes the difference.

Keyword research

"I want to have what he's having!"

First of all, your business determines the keywords for your site, and not the opposite way.

Being at top for something you don't offer will leave your visitors disappointed, and your business without an income.

On the other hand, trying hard for something you can't have, will leave you without any visitors, and again... your business without an income.

The first rule of choosing keywords is:
Get real.

The second rule is:
It's not obtaining it is what's important.
It's whether you can keep it or not.

Your business profile will always leave you a wide range of possible and often queried keywords where you don't have to compete with national or international corporations. ( Unless you are aspiring to become one of course ). Knowing the realities of search engine use is of key importance. Keyword research is not as scary as it may sound, all you need is to make sure that you don't set the bar neither too high nor too low.

Preparing a list of possible words, matching their popularity vs the level of competiton. That's the first step for a professional.

Once your site has been made googlefriendly, all you need to do is wait until the robots index your page for the keywords you chose

"Google friendly = Design & Usability + Web Site Navigation + Page Content + Keyword Research"

You should know the first rule of search engine optimization: what's on YOUR web site should come before what you do anywhere else.