One of Bing’s Facebook fans brings up a good point about the search market. Google is simply ingrained in so many people’s online habits, Bing’s biggest challenge is to simply keep Google users from being sucked back into the Google way.

Bing reminded everyone this week that it is still behind in some aspects of search, when it announced personalized search results based on location and history.Google has been personalizing search results based on these factors for quite some time. The announcement doe show that Bing is improving, however.

Meanwhile, as Google’s search quality is repeatedly called into question, one of the biggest things it has going for it is probably the fact that it is indeed a habit for so many people, because it has simply dominated the search market for so long.

Bing has a new weapon in this battle, however. Last year, Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7. Initital sales of the devices that run this platform weren’t too mindblowing. Now, as you may have read, Microsoft has entered a strategic partnership with Nokia, which will see its phone OS being used across Nokia devices. And guess what – Bing will also be used across these devices as the default search.

Habits are a lot easier to break when the default is the alternative. Of course, it remains to be see just how well this partnership will pay off for Microsoft. They are, after all, competing with the likes of iOS and Android, not to mention BlackBerry and webOS.

While many bloggers and the media are calling Google’s search results out lately, most of the focus has been on the somewhat low-quality pages that show up for informational long-tail searches. My concern for Google’s search results is different, however. As I touched upon in the last newsletter, I’m tired of Google (and Bing) returning sites that use anchor text link spam to get on the first page of results.

For those who don’t know what anchor text is, here’s a quick explanation:

Anchor text is the words in the clickable part of any link. For instance, when someone links to my site, they typically use either my name or my company name in the anchor text, which looks like this:

Jill Whalen is an SEO consultant.

Or…

Visit High Rankings for SEO consulting.

But those links are not all that valuable in SEO terms. What would be better (for search engines) is for the links to be more like these:

Jill Whalen is an SEO consultant.

Visit High Rankings for SEO consulting.

…with the keywords that people might type into Google (or Bing) as the clickable anchor text link.

Search engines assign a lot of weight to the words that are in that clickable link. It does make sense because you’re telling both people and search engines what they’ll get when they click the link.

The problem is that it’s not a natural way for people to link unless they know a bit about how search engines work. It’s more natural to link using the company name, even through links that just say “click here” or “more information.”

Part of what I do as an SEO consultant is to train clients to think like a search engine. I teach clients to link more descriptively on their own sites via “internal” links as well as linking to other “external” sites. But to get honest-to-goodness natural links – that is, links from others just because they really like you or your company – it’s unlikely that the link will have the best anchor text for search engines. And yet, natural links are exactly what Google claims to value. It’s what their PageRank algorithm was originally based on.

But today, natural links and true citations are nearly useless in helping search engines show the best sites for the search query at hand.

For instance, this past Sunday I was quoted in a Washington Post story about Google’s less-than-stellar search results.

I spoke with the reporter for quite some time and also emailed him numerous examples of how some companies easily manipulate Google. He was kind enough to mention me and my company (on page 2) in the article, which was great — but there was no link. I don’t know if it is the Washington Post’s policy not to link, or if they just don’t think about it, or if they have not ever been taught to link. It seems to me that a mention in the Washington Post in this context provides me and my company some credibility, because the WP is a mainstream news outlet. Yet any credibility I may have gained with the people reading the article is completely lost on Google because there’s not only no descriptive anchor text link, there’s no link at all!

Instead, the links that Google (and Bing) end up valuing the most are those where people control the anchor text. Unfortunately, when anchor text can be controlled, it often means that the link:

* was purchased
* was traded for
* was added to a site that is controlled by the owner
* was added to a site in a network controlled by multiple stakeholders (like a link farm)
* was added into an article or bio of an article and posted to an article directory or similar site
* was used in a blog comment
* was part of a forum signature
* was obtained naturally, but the linker had to be asked to edit the anchor text.

Only the last one of those is truly in line with what search engines want to value, and even that one is sketchy because it becomes somewhat unnatural by virtue of requesting different anchor text.

May the Biggest Spammer Win

Most reasonable people would agree that it doesn’t make sense that the companies who own or take part in a network of interlinked websites should rank higher than those who don’t. And why should the websites that have people “writing” boatloads of blog comments outrank their competitors who have no desire to spam others’ blogs? If you’re commenting because you’ll possibly get some link value rather than because you feel the need to add to the conversation, it adds unnecessary clutter and should be counted as spam by the search engines (in my opinion). I wouldn’t be surprised if 90% of blog and forum comments fall into that category, as do most articles submitted to article dírectories.

Here’s the Rub

All of the above types of links still count very highly in Google (and Bing). While links and their anchor text are by no means the only ranking factor for how sites show up in the search engines, they are a very large one at the moment. And surprisingly, neither the relevance nor the quality of those links appears to play as big a role as search engines would like you to believe.

You can take any product search query (both highly competitive and somewhat competitive) and review the backlinks of the sites that show up in Google’s (or Bing’s) top 10 to 20 results and see what I’m talking about.

Random Example

Let’s look at the search query “baby furniture,” which I just randomly thought of as I was writing this. I’m not going to call out any of the sites by name, and your results may differ slightly from mine, but you should get the picture.

The first site to show up in Google is a big brand, which makes sense. In fact, I wasn’t even going to check the backlinks because I figured they likely deserve to be there based on their brand. But then I noticed it’s just a random catalog page from their site. So I looked at their backlinks, and sure enough, there are 357 links pointing to that one page, most from completely irrelevant sites. Some are even hacked sites. But they’ve got keyword-rich anchors that Google (and Bing) love. Many of the links are in blog comments and others in “pártner site” areas (paid links). Wonderful.

Let’s check the #2 site that shows up in Google (which for me was the #1 site in Bing). Looks like there’s a whole network of interlinked baby-related sites that use keyword-rich anchor text links to get all the various sites to rank well for those words. While it’s possible that all those sites have different owners and they really just want to recommend (using juicy anchor text) all those other baby product sites, it sure smells fishy to me! At least in this case they seem to be on relevant sites, unlike the big-brand one above.

The #3 site that I see on Google is also a big brand, and it looks as if many of their links are purchased from mommy blogger-type sites, based on my random clickthroughs of their backlinks. While they at least seem relevant, most are anything but natural. I would consider them akin to ads, aka paid links. Nothing wrong with them purchasing ads on relevant sites, but it’s Google’s job not to count paid links, and yet they do.

About The Author
Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Services Company in the Boston, MA area since 1995. Follow her on Twitter @JillWhalen.

The first real step to anything is research, and lots of it. The most important step to any SEO campaign is keyword research.

The first step to consider is the niche you are in, and the products or services that you are promoting. You should come up with a list of potential keywords that your customers would use to find you on the web.

After that you could use the Google keyword search tool to analyze your list, checking the competitiveness, number of monthly searches and the strength of the competitors currently on page one.

A competitive market analysis is the next important step you should take. After you have your final keyword list, create a spreadsheet with all the keywords, and then list all the competitors from page one of Google.

You could use a program like SEO quake to collect some of the data that you will need, such as their page rank, number of indexed pages, inbound links, whether or not they have a site map and much more. This will tell you how difficult and how long of an SEO campaign you will be embarking on.

Next step should be the on page SEO factors of your website.

First and foremost is content, if you are not providing quality content that solves people’s problems then your efforts will be in vain. Great content will keep your visitors coming back on their own which will greatly assist your SEO efforts.

Make sure all the on page dynamics such as header tags, meta tags, alt tags for images and HTML code is done correctly.

These are the simple things that improve your ‘findability’. You also want to ensure that you have a proper site map created and submitted to the search engines, this will increase your chances of all your pages being properly indexed.

Number four is off page SEO strategies.

The biggest and most important overall here is back linking. Google views every back link your site has as a vote for your site from someone else. The best back links you can get are called one way links. One way links are where another website links to you without you having to link back. Good examples of this are article marketing, blog commenting and directory submissions.

Reciprocal linking is where you link out to website a and website a in turn links back to you. These are also good links but you should only focus on the ones targeted to your niche and those having a higher page rank than you. Good back linking takes time and effort, this cannot be accomplished over night.

You should also avoid any link scams, link farms or questionable linking strategies. If you have to stop and wonder if it’s ok to do it then it probably isn’t.

The last step that is very crucial to your SEO success is the overall promotion of your website. There are several ways of effectively promoting your products and services via the internet.

1) Video marketing
This can be promoted in conjunction with your website or separately for added exposure.

2) Email marketing
This allows you to keep track and communicate with your customers and potential customers.

3) Web 2.0
These are blogs, hub pages, wikis and such. Also a great source of quality back links for your site.

4) Article marketing
If done correctly this will establish you as an expert and help you to generate back links and additional traffic to your offers.

5) Local search marketing such as Yahoo local and Google places
If you have a business in the offline world you certainly want to use this method to promote your business. Google places for instance typically will come up first in the search results.

These are just a few of the strategies that you can use to begin a successful SEO and web promotion campaign. The most import step you will take is to take action. Everything you do should be with the intent of growing your business.

Without getting into the specifics, let’s face it: there’s some stuff on your site – perhaps a script or image – that you’d rather not have a search engine focus on. The Robots.txt File Generator can come to your aid if that’s the case.

This tool lets users pick which robots they’d like to either allow in or keep out, with options ranging from the Googlebot to the MSNbot to Teoma. Then, after the user specifies some files or directories, it’ll spit out a robots.txt file.

I get this question all the time from clients and people I work with. “Derek, what exactly is SEO, why do I need it and how does it work. More importantly, what specifically do I need to do about SEO?”

Well, let me explain it in very simple and easy to understand language so you can incorporate the right SEO strategy online for your business that will help you authentically build your list and get more clients.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Simply put, SEO is the process of optimizing your website by improving the internal (behind-the-scenes web techy stuff) and the external (web content, pages, images, etc.) setup in order to increase traffic to your site from search engines like Google.

Why does my website need SEO?

The big commercial search engines – Google, Bing, AOL and Yahoo, drive a lot of web traffic. If your site cannot be easily found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their database, you miss out on an incredible opportunity available to websites who appear in the search engine results for the keywords you want to be associated with. As a result, less people who want to have what you have will be visiting your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products, or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all people online.

How does SEO work?

Search queries, the words that users type into the search box which contain terms and phrases best suited to your site, carry huge value. These “keywords” dictate what sites the search engines deem worthy of appearing in the results. To do that, search engines really have four main functions – crawling, building an index, determining relevancy & rankings and providing results. Crawling and indexing the zillions of documents, pages, files, news, videos and media on the Internet – and – providing answers to user search queries, through lists of relevant sites / pages via search results and rankings.

What do I do about SEO?

It comes down to doing what I call the ABC’s of SEO.

A is for Architecture

The architecture of your site is critical for SEO success. And, I don’t mean having tons of funky widgets and menu options on your site with flashy design or cool features. Your site needs to have the right framework – like a solid design and well-implemented architecture (i.e. like a house) to support the content and links within the site.

Think of the site like a house where the rooms, stairs and other internal parts of the house require a solid foundation – floors, walls, wiring, mechanics, etc. Without a solid internal architecture, the house (i.e. your site) won’t support it. Equally as important is the external architecture of the house to support the roof, siding, doors, windows, etc. The architecture matters on both the inside and outside.

B is for Back links

The more your site and individual pages are referenced by other sites – the more “back links” you have and the more the search engines will favor your site. It’s basically like other sites giving your site the “thumbs up” indicating they recommend or endorse your site.

One of the best ways to get back links is by submitting your articles to article directory sites. As a result, the search engines will “listen” to their recommendations based on the articles submitted on their site and linking back to your site and content. (Tip – always have a call to action at the end of your article to refer people back to your site so they can opt-in to your list!)

C is for Content

Any site won’t really amount for much in terms of SEO unless it provides good content. The content has to be keyword “rich” for the search terms you want to appear for and be extremely relevant and valuable for your visitors. Be sure to include the keyword terms and phrases in your content that would be relevant and valuable for your visitors.

For example, if you portray your site to be all about “skiing” in terms of the URL, site name and page names, etc. and you only talk about “underwater basket weaving” and nothing about skiing, people will click on your site and then click away. This tells the search engines your site is not providing useful content or relevant information for what it portrays to be providing. You have to provide high-content and high-value information using very useful and authentic content.

Follow these ABC’s of SEO and you’ll be on your way to improving the rankings of your site in the search engines and as a result – improving your authentic online marketing to build your list and get more clients!

Until next time… Learn It, Love It, Live It!

Your Assignment:

Follow my model of the ABC’s of SEO to review what’s in place for your site.

[A - Architecture] Do you have a solid architecture in place for your website with the right menu items, images and content? If you’re using a stand-alone website, can you easily change it and update the content with new and fresh information?

[B - Back links] I’m a huge believer in a solid article marketing strategy to ensure your high-quality and high-content articles are being distributed and picked up by high-profile article directories which the search engines love. Follow my recommendations for some of the article marketing sites above and ensure you have a call-to-action in each of your articles.

[C - Content] You’ve got to put out really excellent content – nothing else. Make sure you’re giving as much as possible in the content you’re putting out – don’t hold back or think you’re giving away too much. I’m a firm believer the better the free content you provide, the better potential clients you will receive.

See your content the way the search engines do! Spiders don’t operate like normal users, and yet you’ve got to take their perspective into account. The Spider Simulator will help you do exactly that.

Just enter the URL in which you’re interested, and the Spider Simulator will return “spidered” page titles, text, meta descriptions, meta keywords, internal links, and external links. Use this information to your advantage and gain new insight into how the search engines work.

In the world of the modern web it is vital that you keep your web pages fast for your users to see and use, this is also true for search engines as Google is now going to take into consideration load times when indexing websites.

It can be very difficult to make these web pages smaller and faster with clients requiring high quality images/ graphics and dynamic effects such as videos and slideshows. There are however a number of things a web designer can do to make sure that the website is at top speed.

Image compression

It is important to make sure that any images used within the website are at their smallest file size without losing quality. There are many graphics programs out there that can help you to re-size your images so that they are smaller. It is also important to use the correct formats such as GIF and PNG.

The GIF format (Graphics Interchange Format) has been very popular on the web for a number of years due to its ability to create very small file sizes.

You do not really want to be creating large images through this format as you will see a loss in quality but for buttons, small images and backgrounds it is ideal.

The PNG format (Portable Network Graphics) has taken over the GIF in recent years due to its great compressed quality and low file size. PNG is great for logos and other large sized graphics.

External CSS Files

CSS is a very powerful web tool and when used well it makes websites look amazing. It can however slow down the performance of a website if it is used internally (inline) because it gives the browser too much code to read through at once. The best way to use CSS is externally, linking it in to your HTML.

Every great website needs a good style sheet or two but there are many websites relying on 4 or 5 style sheets which slows down performance and the way a search engine crawls the site. Try and keep CSS files down to a minimum and make sure they are external.

External JavaScript

JavaScript works wonders on a website helping it to look and feel more dynamic but just like CSS, if it is used too much internally it can slow down your webpage and give search engines too much code to look through when crawling your site.

Use JavaScript files externally and link them into your HTML for optimum performance.

Unnecessary code

When looking through the code of a website there is very often areas of code that really do not need to be there. This could be due to various developers and designers working on the same project or a website that has had changes over the years.

Unnecessary code like this makes the browser read things that are unimportant or non existent, which will slow the load time of the site. Just take the time to read through the code and strip out any areas that aren’t needed.

Server

Good hosting is key to the speed of any website. Make sure that your server is up to date with the latest processors and can handle the traffic your website is getting. If you have a website that attracts thousands of hits then shared hosting will just slow down the website and make it unavailable to others, this is where a dedicated server is needed.

Keeping a check on your hosting can really speed up your website and keep users happy.

Script compression programs

It is a good idea sometimes when running various scripts and style sheets to run them through compression software which will compress JavaScript, CSS and HTML files to ensure that they are as small as possible. This will help to make the webpage fast.

There is one problem when doing this however, if you use a program like Mozilla Firefox’s Firebug to inspect your code, it can be hard to find the exact area you need. This is because it tends to bunch things like CSS together as so it can be hard to spot the areas you wan tot change.

For a number of years, many online marketers honestly thought that the only thing they needed to do to be successful online was to build a website, and the buyers would come to them.

They heard all of the success stories from people who claimed that they had simply built a website, and people just started to arrive in huge numbers.

The story, as it is told, is:

These folks built a website, then the search engines found their websites and started showing people the link to their website. And the people using the search engines saw the link to their websites and saw that it was good. Search engine users saw the link and, as if it were the only link in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), they clicked the link by the thousands. And hoards of people came to the website with fists full of money, ready to purchase what the website was selling.

ome people still believe this is how the search engines work. They have built their websites, and they are waiting anxiously for the “Traffic Fairy” to sprinkle his magic dust on their websites too, so that they can also make lots of money.

Are YOU Still Waiting For The Traffic Fairy?

I hope not.

Those who are “waiting” for anything may wait until they realize they are flushing good money down the proverbial toilet, month after month. When they realize that they still have more money going out than they have coming in, they usually get irritated that the “Traffic Fairy” did not look favorably on them, so they stop paying their hosting bill and quit this scam called, “onlíne marketing.”

The lifespan of most new websites can generally be measured in the amount of time most people will remain members of a subscription website. In case you did not know, this number is 3-4 months. Along about the 4th or 5th month, most people will stop paying their web hosting bill and let their websites die.

Those people who prepay 1-2 years on their web hosting bill will typically allow their sites to remain online, but they will quit the site long before their website runs out of life. Most will stick it out 3-4 months, and if they are not yet making money, they will just walk away from their new “online business.”

This is why you will find so many article directories where you submit your finest work, and no one will ever “approve” your article for publication. There may be nothing wrong with your article. The fact is no one is home to approve it.

The Traffic Fairy Smiles on Those Who Take Action

If you can believe it, in the fall of 1998, Google was a startup website.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin — the founders of Google — were just like you and I. They had a startup website, and they needed people to discover their new website.

In those days, Page and Brin could not simply build their website and “wait” for the Traffic Fairy or Google to find them.

They were Google, and no one was using their website.

What did they do to get Google off the ground?

While building Google in their garage, Page and Brin were doing what you should be doing now. They were getting links wherever they could get links. They were adding their site to directories. They were issuing press releases about their new company. They were trying to get interviews with the press and ordinary webmasters. They were trying to get interviews with newsletter publishers. They were participating in forums and news groups to share their story.

They started their website in September of 1998 and they got their first major press in December of 1998, when they made the top 100 websites of 1998.

It took them three months to get their first major press, and they had been actively promoting their website with the gusto of a 10,000-person marching band.

Yet the average new webmaster barely promotes his or her website and expects to attract thousands of visitors in the same time frame as it took Google to get noticed by the public-at-large.

Are you starting to get the picture?

To Be Successful, Do What the Successful Websites Have Done

Before Google was the powerhouse it is today, its founders had to work their asses off to build their business.

They had to promote, promote, and promote some more. They had to build links, build links, and build some more links. They needed to entice people to visit and use their website, and they needed to provide a method for people to find them.

My point is that the founders of Google wanted to be acknowledged and linked from every corner of the Internet. They chased links for their website because they knew that people used links to get to a website.

Twelve years later, Yahoo credits them with 223,383,603 links to www.google.com and another 6,752,847 links to google.com. siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

You and I are not going to get 231 million links to our websites, but getting links from a variety of resources is the secret to getting traffic to ones’ website. The Traffic Fairy blesses those websites that have a multitude of links to them.

Page and Brin tapped into the basics of building traffic to their website. They made a great website, and they did everything they could do to get traffic to that website.

You should try to emulate them as you build your website and start to promote it. It was the secret to their success, and likewise, it could be the secret to your success.

Traffic Generation 101

The easiest and cheapest ways to get links and generate traffic for ones’ website is going to be: article marketing, press releases, forum marketing, social media marketing, etc.

But, there are at least three-dozen methods to generate traffic to ones’ website, and these are just four of them.

The more successful websites always strive to get traffic through a wide variety of traffic generation strategies and methods.

In my case, I have used 31 of the 35 methods I describe in the 80-page traffic guide, “Multiple Traffic Streams: The Magic of Attracting Buyers.”

This has resulted in my top three websites being on track to serving 400,000 unique visitors and 5 million page views in 2010.

Don’t wait for the Traffic Fairy to bless your website. Take massive action to make sure that the Traffic Fairy would be a fool to ignore you.

And if you do, you might just realize that the Traffic Fairy is real, and he would love to sprinkle his magic traffic dust on your website too.

Search and social go well together, and the search engines are finding more and more ways to use them together. In fact, the right combinations of these two elements could eventually dictate who has the most useful tools for users.

It’s become more and more clear over time that having a strong social presence is helpful in building a strong search presence for a variety of reasons, but it’s not been so clear, just how the search engines have looked at things like Twitter and Facebook profiles when it comes to organic search ranking.

Search Engine Land Chief Danny Sullivan posted an important article about this very topic, with some rare and surprisingly direct answers from both Google and Bing. While, neither exactly gave away their respective secret sauces, it would appear that they have set some things straight.

Google

Google reportedly uses when an article is retweeted or referenced in Twitter as a signal in organic and news rankings (even though links on Twitter are nofollowed). They also use it to enhance the news universal results (based on how many people share an article).

Google “computes and uses author quality” for when someone tweets. When Sullivan asked if they calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on who tweets it, Google Responded, “Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the ‘Top links’ section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search.”

Google says it treats links shared on Facebook Fan pages the same way as tweeted links, but they have no personal Facebook wall data. Authority for Facebook Pages is also treated like Twitter.

So, the more authoritative the crowd sharing links to your content, the better. Not that different than PageRank.

Bing

When it comes to Twitter, Bing tells Sullivan it also looks at social authority of users and more specifically, looks at how many people they follow and how many follow them, adding that this can add “a little weight” to a listing in regular search results (though it carries more in Bing’s separate Social Search). Bing decides when links should carry more weight based on the person who tweets it.

As far as Facebook, Bing currently looks at links shared on Facebook that are marked as being shared to “everyone” and those from Fan Pages. “We can tell if something is of quality on Facbook by leveraging Twitter,” as Sullivan paraphrases Bing’s response. “If the same link is shared in both places, it’s more likely to be legitimate.”

Bing does not use its new Facebook data in ordinary web search…yet.

On a related note, Bing is finding other interesting ways to utilize Facebook with search.

So, clearly it pays to tweet and build a credible Twitter presence. This means gaining a significant following in number, but also getting authoritative users to follow you (and hopefully retweet your links). This would appear to be good for plain old fashioned organic rankings as well as other supplemental search results. More importantly, it pays to create good content that will attract authoritative Twitterers to share it with others.

These things of course pay anyway, but it’s nice to know that they actually do have an effect on search rankings as well.

It’s not surprising that Twitter is currently playing a more important role in to search engine ranking than Facebook, simply because Twitter is public by default. Facebook is much more walled, meaning that most of the good Facebook data is private. Though it will be interesting to see what happens when Bing does integrate its newly acquired Facebook into its regular search offerings.

This wall of Facebook’s is also a factor into why Facebook could potentially unleash its own legitimate search engine. It’s got a search feature now of course, but there is a great deal of potential for them to do a whole lot more and really get under Google’s skin. More on that here.

Sullivan provides more background and context around the search engines’ social signals, as well as the full with both Bing and Google, and details about the Twitter Firehose’s lack of nofollow.

When you review the keywords from which people clicked to your site, are they only peripherally related to what you provide? If so, your website is likely suffering from BlindWebsititis!

What Is BlindWebsititis?

BlindWebsititis is what happens to websites when those in charge of their content don’t come right out and say exactly what every page is all about. Instead, they use only corporate jargon, non-descriptive copy, or – in acute cases – no copy at all. It’s a horrible condition that affects hundreds of thousands of websites every year. Sadly, the pain of BlindWebsititis goes well beyond the hurt to the website itself; it often spreads to site visitors who have to try to guess what the company offers.

Even search engines aren’t spared from BlindWebsititis. Their symptoms include the miscategorization of the afflicted websites because there’s no way for them to assign relevant keywords.

Rather than dealing with the pain of BlindWebsititis, many users move away from infected sites as quickly as possible, in search of healthier ones that clearly say what they’re offering.

Causes of BlindWebsititis

This condition is so widespread that intensive research has gone into determining the possible causes. One major cause is the proprietary prose that companies use internally to discuss their offerings. While using company jargon within the walls of a business is not unhealthy in and of itself, when it makes its way to the website, it often turns into BlindWebsititis. Companies tend to forget that for every person who knows exactly what they do, there may be 20 others who don’t.

BlindWebsititis Immunity

While BlindWebsititis has been spreading like the flu, research finds that some websites are immune. What gives them this immunity? These companies are interested only in visitors who seek them out by brand name. It turns out that search engines use a special “immunized algorithm” that protects branded searches from coming down with the condition.

The Worst Cases

Sadly, companies who seek to gain new customers from the search engines – that is, people looking for their type of product or service who don’t already know that the company exists – are hurt the most by BlindWebsititis. These companies often stop growing, and in many cases premature death is inevitable.

The Cure

For critical cases of BlindWebsititis, companies must immediately take action! The first step is to let people who haven’t heard of them know that they’re in the right place. Because it’s widely accepted that people using search engines are generally searching for stuff, they are typically pleased when they find their information quickly and easily. The cure with the fewest number of side effects is to display this information as clearly and succinctly as possible.

The Recovery

Research into BlindWebsititis has shown that clarity on every page results in the best recovery rate because there is no beginning, middle, or end to any website. Because each page is a gateway to the rest of the site, when one page is afflicted, the rest are too. Adding clear content to all pages tells users that they’ve found what they’re looking for, which leaves BlindWebsititis with no further mode of attack. In fact, it’s been found that just adding a short, descriptive summary to the top of every page can cure BlindWebsititis immediately. (However, the cure has a longer recovery period for search engines if they have to re-index the previously afflicted pages.)

The Active Ingredients

Best results have been noted when the site creator uses keyword phrases in the most natural manner possible. This means users don’t have to think too hard, which boosts their own immune response to the affliction. Descriptive web writing provides complete information to search engine visitors who don’t know anything about the company or its products and services.

Beware of a Relapse!

While BlindWebsititis may seem to be cured on websites when a paragraph of text is added below the fold (rather than at the top), the affliction still exists, albeit in a dormant state. It may not affect search engines in this form, but because users often don’t look below the fold, they continue to feel the pain. Their suffering often takes the form of scratching their heads in wonderment. The resulting itchiness can become acute if the copy at the bottom of the page is keyword stuffed or slightly hidden with gray text and is suddenly noticed by the user.

Is Your Website Afflicted?

To see if your website has BlindWebsititis, take a look at it with fresh eyes. Perform usability tests with people who are not already familiar with your company and see if they can tell what you provide within a short amount of time. If they are confused or have to clíck around to your About Us page, then you have some work to do. Luckily, you’ll see great benefits when you completely cure BlindWebsititis by clearly describing your products and services. Benefits include increased search engine rankings, more targeted visitors, a decreased bounce rate, and higher conversions and sales.