For the main Web Costa Blanca site, I’ve already written a quite long article on search engine optimisation. This is something which, quite naturally, obsesses website owners. If you have a product, you want people to buy it; if you have a message, you want it to get across to people. This won’t happen if they can’t find your site on a search engine. And the more competition there is (similar products, similar messages) the more important it is that people find your site first.
If you’ve already read my article, here are a couple of extras. One caveat, one treat.
People will tell you quite proudly that, on their chosen keywords, their site appears on the first page of Google’s search results—maybe even at number one. The question is: how many people type those particular words into a search box? And how often?
If you type “Michael Scannell†into a search box—with or without the quotation marks—you will find my personal site on the first page of every major search engine, usually at the top. For good SEO reasons: the domain name is michael-scannell.com (with the unhyphenated version parked on it, so you can get to it via either URL); the name appear in the title tag of every page. And so on. So how many people type those words into a search box? Some days, one or two. Some days, none.
My cherished number one place isn’t really that much to brag about. Keywords aren’t really much use to you if you’re the only one using them.
You can find out how many people have used particular sets of words when searching, across the main search engines. This is one tool. Here is another. There are many more.
The treat?
Oh yes, the treat. Bruce Clay’s gorgeous diagram of the relationship between search engines. It takes a while to load if you don’t have broadband, but it’s worth it. Just move your magnifying glass across the loaded diagram to see everything.
