This article was heard on the radio program "The Computer Report," which is broadcast live on WCAP in Lowell, Mass., and is syndicated on WBNW in Boston and WPLM in Plymouth, Mass, and is also available as RealAudio at
This article is based on a speech which Richard delivered at a SCORE seminar in Roxbury, Mass., for Internet entrepreneurs, on May 24, 2000.
For other articles on a similar theme and more details about how to design your Web pages and Web site so that you can be found, check www.samizdat.com, and in particular www.samizdat.com/report.html
Can we help you build an Internet business? Richard Seltzer is an independent Internet writer/speaker/consultant. For details, see www.samizdat.com/consult.html.
The simple answer is -- words.
Why? -- because of search engines.
Why? -- because of the free traffic they can bring to your site.
Static, searchable text drives Web traffic -- not graphics, not expensive design effects, not constantly renewed content.
Web designers typically focus on the user experience at a Web site. Hence they pay close attention to the look and feel. They go out of their way to personalize the experience. They like to use databases so pages can be created on the fly to match a visitor's profile, or to be able to add new content and new graphics to a site with the greatest of ease.
But they often ignore what is far more important -- what it takes to draw traffic to a site. And the techniques they use that look so wild and wonderful, and that even outshine the great sites of your competitors, inadvertently lock out search engines, reducing the traffic to your site without you even knowing it, and lead to your incurring advertising expense, again and again, to bring in traffic.
Ask them about search engines, and they'll give you well-meaning and wrong-headed answers. They'll say that search engines use metatags -- give them the keywords that are important to you, and they'll make keyword metatags for you, and for just a few bucks they'll sign you up with a search engine submission company; and you're all set. They sound confident; you're impressed; your beautiful site goes online, and nobody comes.
In fact, metatags do not matter, and search engine submission companies typically submit just your home page, when, at least at AltaVista, you should submit each and every page.
In fact, search engines pay no attention to "key words" except for advertising sales. For full-text search, every word on every page matters. The more content -- static HTML text -- the better.
More content does not affect your ranking for queries that involve single generic words -- like computer or photography or database -- which may appear on millions of Web pages. But it does on unexpected searches -- when people enter a series of words and phrases that match just what's on your pages, people who really want to find what you have.
Designers typically prefer small Web pages -- no more than you can see on a single screen; they don't like the visitor to have to scroll down.
But search engines, like AltaVista, give more weight and relevance to large pages than small ones. And people seeking real information prefer it all in a single page that they can easily search and easily print, rather than having to load page after tiny page.
Designers typically use tools that automatically generate directories inside directories inside directories.
But search engines give precedence to pages in the topmost directory; and sites with a flat structure do far better than those with an elaborate and deep directory tree.
Designers typically use tools that pay no attention to the HTML title or generate it automatically.
But to search engines the HTML title is the most important part of the page. That is what appears as the linking words in a list of results, and when words of a query match words in an HTML title, that page typically goes to the top of the list.
Designers routinely remove old and stale and obsolete content and replace it with what's current.
But, on the Web, old content is far more valuable than new content, because it has had time to become a part of the overall Web infrastructure -- included in search engines and directories, included in the bookmarks and favorites of individuals, and linked to by other Web sites. You should never remove a Web page or change its directory or its file name. Simply add text to explain what has changed and provide links to the new pages that have the latest and greatest info.
In other words, if you are responsible for marketing or for the overall business of a Web site, you should not abdicate responsibility for Web site design to professional designers. You need to know what matters to you -- which in many cases is traffic, new visitors, new prospects. And you need to know enough about the value of content on the Internet and how search engines work that you can make your priorities clear and lay down clear guidelines for the designers.
Tell them you want traffic-oriented Web design, not design for its own sake.
Let them know you want to build a successful business, rather than collect design awards to decorate your walls with.
This site is Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. (617) 469-2269. seltzer@samizdat.com
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For a thorough discussion of this topic, buy Richard's book Web Business
Bootcamp (published by Wiley) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471164194/brsamizdatexpres
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