~~~High Search Engine Rankings~~~
From: Phil Peterson
Jill,
Gees, you scare me. I thought I was doing all the right things in
regards to submitting keywords to search engines. I am presently
submitting "pointer pages" to all the search engines daily via
Trafficseeker. I have 20 pointer pages so that each one is repeated
after more than a month. I slightly change the title, description,
and 3-4 keywords out of 16 total. We seem to be doing OK, but I have
noticed that we go from page one to nowhere on the radar, depending on
the search engine. (We were moving up in AltaVista but they have
dropped us recently.) We are a small private company and I manage 2
company web sites.
Should I not submit pointer pages at all? My company is relying on
me to do the right thing to get us listed.
Anyway, I thought your article was very interesting and informative.
I assume "gateway pages" are the same as "pointer pages"?
Regards,
Phil Peterson
Marketing Director
Automated Production Systems, Inc.
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Hey Phil,
Sounds like you just read my article, "The Myth of Gateway Pages". I do believe what you are
calling "pointer pages" are essentially "gateway" or "doorway" pages.
If their sole purpose is to get high search engine rankings, then they
are frowned upon by the search engines, regardless of what you call
them. And you're submitting them daily? Yikes! I would imagine that
daily submissions would do nothing more than put up a big 'ole red
flag (or maybe it's a pirate flag!) on your URLs that says, "Look at
me, I'm trying to rank high!" That's about all daily (or weekly, or
monthly) submissions will do for you.
In reading through your question, I think where your methodology is
flawed is in the idea that you must "submit keywords to the search
engines." By believing that this is the job at hand, the natural next
step would be to create pages that feed these keywords to the engines.
And that, my Rank Write friends, is not the way to think of search
engine optimization, in my opinion.
That's not what search engine optimization is all about. Think about
what the word "optimization" means, for a minute. In fact, here's
part of the official definition of the word from Dictionary.com:
op-ti-mi-za-tion n. - "The procedure or procedures used to make a
system or design as effective or functional as possible..."
It doesn't say anything about submitting keyphrases to the search
engines. It doesn't talk about submitting gateway pages to the
engines. It most definitely doesn't discuss bidding on keywords at
pay-per-click search engines. (Hehe...ok...I know those really
aren't fair analogies, but you get the point!) It sounds to me that
by calling what we do "search engine optimization," the very phrase is
telling us that we need to make our designs as effective or functional
as possible for the search engines. Optimizing is not about
submitting or buying keywords...it's about fixing and tweaking stuff.
(Search Engine Placement...or SEP is a different story. We're talking
SEO here at the moment.)
So remove any notion of submitting keywords to the search engines.
(You...over there hiding in the corner...YOU, TOO!) By shifting your
focus away from that strategy, you can now concentrate your energies
on doing what's right for your Web site. The goal is to drive
targeted traffic to your Web site.
You mention that you have 16 keywords; hopefully you really mean
keyphrases. Are you telling me that these important keyphrases are not mentioned anywhere on your actual
site? And if so, why aren't they? If they aren't mentioned, that
tells me (and the search engines) that they are NOT important to your
site, and your site should NOT be ranked high for those phrases.
That's really the bottom line.
Creating pointer pages that utilize these keyphrases is pointless if
your company doesn't believe the phrases on them are important or
relevant enough to put in the copy of your REAL pages. You know it,
the people who visit your site know it, and the search engines know
it. The engines will see that the pages your pointer pages are
pointing to don't have the same kind of theme as your pointer pages,
and it will be difficult to maintain long-term high rankings for
anything. There's a whole mathematical explanation of this having
something to do with "term vectors" or something like that, but to me,
it's just common sense!
Just remember, if your targeted keyphrases are truly relevant to your
Web site, then for heaven's sake, use 'em all over your site. Use 'em
in your copy. Use 'em in your Title tag. Use 'em in your Alt tags.
Use 'em in your headlines. No person or search engine can fault you
for talking about your product or service on your site. It's what you
do; it's what you sell. It's the essence of your Web site. It needs
to be talked about on the pages of your actual site! If it's not,
then you need to ask yourself, why not?
Jill
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