Writing for Search Engines

A picture may speak a thousand words, but not if you are trying to generate web traffic, therefore you are going to have to write a few lines.

The toughest part about any business is advertising and publicity. Until people actually know that you are there, they can't very well buy from you. In a traditional "brick and mortar" business, the owner carefully selects his location for maximum exposure to his intended market, he takes out an ad in the yellow pages, he advertises in every available medium. All of that to let people know about his business and woo them to his store.

On the web, we all pretty much have the same location, the yellow pages are not a factor and advertising is only available for a price - and we are trying to do this for nothing, right? Don't despair, there is still hope.

The best advertising is good old-fashioned word of mouth. We'll talk about that another day. Your greater priority at this stage is that second form of internet publicity, the search engine. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Dogpile and AskJolene are the buses that will bring the curious masses to see what you are up to. So you need to begin your blog with them in mind.

Search engines can only read what you write. They will concentrate on your page titles, your headlines (blog titles), the titles for your pictures and the text you put in paragraph form. If all you do is post a picture with a link to a gallery, the search engine has no idea what your blog is about. You may have a thousand of the best pictures of girls with green socks on the net, but without written words no one will be able to find them.

Not a writer, you say? Stay calm, you don't need to be Hemingway to attract web traffic. All you need are a few lines that incorporate the "key words" that web surfers are likely to use when looking for pictures, videos and other information about your niche. Let's go back to our green-socked girls for some inspiration. What would you type into a search engine if that is what you wanted to see?

girls with green socks
teen green socks
green socks girls
babes green stockings
redhead green socks

Ok, the last one is a little more specific than our blog, but we want to get that guy too, right?

Make sure that when you write, you include those phrases and any others that you can think of. It is not necessary to include ALL of them in every post, just hit one or two.

"Yesterday, I was at the mall and noticed how many girls were there. None of them had green socks. I wish this redhead would have been there, to see her gorgeous legs wrapped in those green stockings would have made my day! Click here to see more pictures of this great looking redhead."

OK, so you weren't at the mall and that is probably the dumbest bunch of rubbish you have ever read. Agreed. But after you write a half-dozen post or so using those phrases, google will begin sending folks your way. Besides, if you are really into girls with green socks, you are going to come up with something better than that!

A quick side note. You aren't going to "fool" Google, Yahoo or the other search engines. People have been attempting that for years in an effort to attract more traffic to their sites by acting like the site deals with something that it does not. The search engine gods are working harder and harder (thankfully) at making sure that a site delivers what it promises. Be honest about what your site is, and the search engines will bring you people who are honestly interested. In the end that is what you want. People who are tricked into coming to your site aren't interested in buying what you are selling anyway.

OK, get busy. You need a half-dozen posts or so before your site is search-engine ready, so you have work to do!