Ask a geek his or her recommendations on how to optimize a web site and there's one thing and one thing alone they'll focus on... the technology of a web site or blog. But I'm not a geek, I think outside of the box and I'm here to tell you one of the most important things to a web site or blog is content. Yes, your content.
Content Always Gets Overlooked
I attend online workshops and conventions regularly by industry professionals a lot and one thing I constantly here is how web sites need to be made technically efficient for search engines, like Google. Yes, that's important, the easier your web site is to be "crawled" by search engine "spiders", the quicker your web site can start appearing in results.
But here's one thing people don't realize... once Google is able to crawl on your web site, it's there to index your content. It doesn't give you an A+ because it got there, or it doesn't judge your pretty graphics and it couldn't care less if you have a BBB logo on your web site. It only cares about your content. After all, that's how results end up in Google. Sure, it may know about your web site, but if you don't have the content a visitor is looking for, you'll never end up in the results list.
Content Is The Gateway To Search Results
Let me repeat that again... Content is the gateway to search results. I can't stress this enough. Try this... do a web search for something very specific. Such as "How do you clip a dog's nails?" into Google and see what results come up. Make a list of the top ten items that appear. Now, open a new browser window and ask the same question, but this time change up each word, so that your still looking for the same thing, but in a different specific way. Such as "What is the best way to cut a dog's toe nails?".
Compare your results. In my example, the first two results were from the same web site, but the rest of the results were all mixed. Why is that? Because it's not all about technology but content. The very first web site had actual content that matches both searches. Keywords are a thing of the past. Metatags are a thing of the past. And for simplicity's sake, even "link farming" is a thing of the past. It's all about content. Not just what you have, but how you have it.
So What Needs To Be Done?
It's real simple... contact me and I'll do an assessment of your web site, blog, or if you're planning on starting one, do an assessment of your proposed content. I'll work with you on what needs to be changed, but more importantly, guide you on how to create future content that lookings pleasing to not only your viewers, but also to word hungry search engines.