~~~Writing for the Search Engines and Your Prospects~~~
As our long-time readers know, normally, Jill and I field all Rank
Write questions. But this one was different. Instead of researching
the answer, I went straight to the expert source. I'd like you all to
meet Chris Sherman, President of Searchwise.net, Associate Editor of Search Engine Watch, co-author of the fantastic book, "The Invisible Web," with Gary Price, and search expert guru. Not to mention, he's a good friend of mine, so you know he has to be cool.
"The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines
Can't See," is one fantastic resource. We all know that there's no
way the search engines can spider every single Web page, so this book
offers guidance on how to search the "Invisible Web" for the
information you need. From real-time information searches, to people
searches, legal information and public records, this book will teach
you the tools for supreme searching. Not to mention, the section on
the history of the Internet made me realize how far we've come. I
mean, how many people remember "Gopherspace?"
I read this book on a plane, and it kept my interest the entire time
(which is a great kudo, since my plane attention span is that of a
gnat!). I would highly recommend this book, which you can order at http://store.yahoo.com/infotoday/invisibleweb.html.
OK, enough rambling from me. Let's let Chris share his wisdom.
Heather
From: Patricia B. Miranda
Jill/Heather,
I just started subscribing to RankWrite so I'm not sure if you've
covered this topic or not: When I perform a search on a phrase, such
as *reconfigurable computing* (one of my site's keywords), I get a
higher ranking for my site when I search on "reconfigurable computing"
rather than just the two words without the quotes - reconfigurable
computing.
I find this troubling because I can find other sites featuring
reconfigurable computing when I search on the two words WITHOUT the
quotes. I would much rather have our customers find us without quotes
because I'm thinking that not too many people search on a phrase using
quotes. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks much and I love your column,
Patricia B. Miranda
Product Marketing Specialist
SRC Computers, Inc.
~~~Chris Sherman's Response~~~
To quote or not to quote, that's the question. The reason Patricia's
home page appears to do well when she uses the quoted vs. unquoted
phrase "reconfigurable computing," is that the phrase appears only
four times on the page -- in meta tags and links, but nowhere in the
body of the page. This might make a good match for someone looking for
those specific words, since they're in "important" parts of the page,
but not for a searcher looking for the *topic* reconfigurable
computing, since the page has no body text describing the subject.
Patricia needs at least one or two paragraphs about the topic on the
page, *if* that's the primary phrase she wants to be found for. I'd
also recommend that she engage in a link building campaign where
people link to her site using anchor text with the phrase.
As an aside, the page is also predominately Javascript, with
"important" text pushed way down to the bottom of the page. I'd
relegate all of the javascript to separate files and use an include
statement or two that the crawlers will breeze past, rather than
forcing them to parse line after line of code they won't index anyway.
Bottom line, you can't really control how a search engine will respond
when you use quoted vs. unquoted queries. Some engines give different
results; others give identical results for each type of query. Some
engines rely on vast phrase dictionaries to identify unquoted phrases.
Others put more emphasis on Boolean AND operations rather than natural
language phrases. So the best advice is to follow straightforward
principles: Create good, relevant copy with your keywords and phrases
used in meaningful ways, try to get other relevant sites to link to
yours, and above all, don't try to outwit the engines. Give them what
they want and they'll help you; try to fool them and they'll boot you.
Chris Sherman
csherman@searchwise.net
Thanks for your question (and your answer, Chris!). Keep those SEO
writing and conversion rate writing questions coming!
Heather
~~~Send Us Your Questions~~~
If you have questions about online copywriting or search engine optimization (or both!), just zip us an email to questions@rankwrite.com. We've had some folks ask if their question
was "too basic" to be printed - and you don't have to worry about
that! There are no "stupid" search engine optimization or copywriting
questions, so ask away!
