Desperation is not hot. Just ask anyone who’s found themselves cornered by a salesman. You might have been apt to buy whatever it is they sell if the guy hadn’t been so eager, so accommodating; the whole situation becomes unsavory and when something comes too easy, we’re apt to not trust it. The more attractive tempo, instead, relies on the tried-and-true withholding dance of hard-to-get.
Search engines subscribe to this ideal, over the years adapting their algorithms to reward Web sites that, rather than put it all out there, maintain a level of decorum. The engines don’t want spammy sites that try too hard; they want sites that have naturally relevant SEO for their users. They want Web sites that have a little dignity and self-respect, for goodness sake.
At this point I may appear to be a traitor to my industry. It seems as though I’m besmirching the procedures of organic optimization, lauding the philosophy that Web sites should refrain from trying too hard to be within the engines’ good graces.
Not at all.
My advice, instead, is for Web sites to use subtle coquetry, optimizing for the users and not, not, not for the engines.
DON’T target a key phrase because it’s popular and highly-searched.
DO target a key phrase because it’s relevant.
DON’T buy, beg, borrow, or steal link love.
DO provide content that begs to be shared and promoted.
DON’T use a keyword twenty times in the span of a few paragraphs.
DO craft your content to provide relevant information your users want to see.
DON’T overload your pages with useless links to useless content.
DO provide simple, intuitive navigation that clearly and honestly directs users to where they want to go.
Most recent posts by Joanna
- Post-Recession Online Marketing - November 17th, 2009
- The Evolving Social Media Landscape - October 6th, 2009
- The Delayed Purchase - September 22nd, 2009
- Social Media Marketing and Women - September 9th, 2009
- Twitter-Jacking? - August 25th, 2009
