February 26, 2006
By Nina Dietzel, Leading Trends
Nina Dietzel is a principal in the San Francisco creative and marketing firm 300FeetOut. For more information on building beautiful, search-optimized websites, contact her at nina@300feetout.com.
Return to article listIs your website on the map?
Helping search engines find your website
What if you built a spectacular website—and nobody could find it? It’s rather like an elegant tropical resort that’s not on any map. Such is the plight of many resort and hotel websites designed for beauty and impact, but lacking the technical tricks and triggers that attract the attention of internet search engines like Google or Yahoo. Who cares how striking a website might be, if it doesn’t pop up when a would-be traveler searches “Caribbean luxury hotel” on the internet?
And search they do—consumers planning travel make an average of six online searches before concluding with an online travel purchase (DoubleClick/Performics Smart Marketing Report, Jan/Feb 2005). Don’t count on a famous name to bring in the web-surfing crowds; armchair travelers don’t search on specific brand names, they key in generic phrases like “5-Star Paris” or “California golf.”
So how do you ensure that your enticing website appears in those coveted top spots on Google or Yahoo? The right-column entries are paid advertising, but the free left-side listings are sorted by search relevance. Every search engine has proprietary technology that “crawls” across internet websites, homing in on keywords, site maps, navigation, and other technical triggers that help the search engines find, register and rank websites.
Help them help you by creating a website optimized for searchability. For instance, as exciting as Flash and JavaScript graphics can be, they are not easily registered by search engines. Sure, use Flash, but also use text including ample keywords important to your competitive niche.
You need answers to these key questions before you can plan an SEO strategy:
Have you analyzed your website’s keyword density page by page, and compared it to the industry’s standard keyword density?
Have you analyzed how your top three competitors manage SEO? Study their text and page labels for important keywords, and check how their rankings appear in Google, Yahoo, and MSN searches.
Have you researched the quality and number of links pointing to your site? There may be opportunities for increased visibility through trade and tourism resources.
And do your homework—research and plan search engine optimization (SEO) before you build that gorgeous—but lonely—website!