Web Site Content: C'Mon, Let a Little Analog Into Your Life

You have a business, or you work for an organization that wants its Web site to gain a higher position in search engine rankings. Understood. Don't we all. But how? One way depends on how you decide to optimize your site. You can spend all your time chasing the magic algorithms of Google, Yahoo, and MSN, among others, or you can turn to what those tricky little "spiders" are really looking for: relevant content.

Don't Be Such a Digital Diehard

Those who think only in digital terms will spend all their time working code, tweaking algorithms, and continually trying to outsmart the engines. And they will lose, because that's not how a Web site gains its position in the rankings. The key phrase here, again, is relevant content. That's what the search engines are looking for.

If you write content aimed at your target audience -- content that is designed to capture and hold their attention based on their search terms -- then you will have gone a long way toward keeping those spiders coming back again and again. Once you've based your content on that premise, then you can go back and add key words and phrases. Just don't go crazy with it. Stick with about a two percent keyword/phrase density, with one key topic per Web page. Remember, the spiders are smart, smart, smart. They know when you're trying to spam them.

Write content for your target market -- the people, the ones who buy -- not for the search engines. They're never going to buy a thing from you. After all, you've already got the left-brain digital stuff down. Stretch your horizons and let that right side -- the analog language side -- talk to both your audience AND the search engines.

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Search Engine Optimizers: Creative and Don't Know It

Successful Web sites combine both left-brain analytics (KEI indexing, keyword phrase/density) and right-brain creativity (content that meets the wants and needs of the intended audience).

If you're a Web site optimizer, and see yourself as someone totally void of what you think we mean by creative skills, you could be selling yourself short.

"I can't sing," you say. "I can't dance, I can't write poems, novels, and screenplays. There's not a creative bone in my body."

Fair enough, if you'll join me in a new look at the idea of "creative." Too many engineering personalities think that creativity applies only to the performing arts, or to writing or to any of the other so-called "soft," esoteric disciplines that do not rely on the use of numbers.

When they define creativity that way, they follow by asserting that creativity has no place in a world where, as Lord William Kelvin (noted mathematician and physicist, 1824-1907) proclaimed:

"Anything that cannot be measured has little value."

By the way, Lord Kelvin also stated that "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." Here's another one of his bonehead observations:

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now."

So, why not take another look at this thing called creativity. Case in point...


Who Can Forget?

Remember Steve Wozniak? Does that ring a bell? It should. Steve Wozniak designed the first Apple computer for Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, Inc. Now, would you consider Wozniak a left-brain analytical engineer? Oh yes. Would you say that he was also creative? I'll let you answer that one. How about Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, one who lived in a world of math, geometry, stress transforms, platform coefficients, plus a host of other analytical elements. But was he also creative? A long list of visually stunning structures across this country will answer that question.

Then there was Carl Sagan, the astronomer. How left-brain is astronomy, huh? A lot, you say, and you'd be right. But was Sagan creative? Did he bring astronomy into our homes and into our lives in ways that helped us understand the wonderful workings of the universe?

And if we took the time to explore the creative talents of Albert Einstein we'd be here all day and all night. I don't remember if it was Einstein, Edison, or Mark Twain who said, "Genius is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration."

Maybe all it takes to unleash the creative side of someone who thinks they don't have one is to coax that person into generating a little perspiration.

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Was That You on the Six O'clock News?

Students of business writing are forever amazed by the number of otherwise intelligent professionals who keep putting their heads on the block by writing things that are either accusatory, inflammatory, incendiary, explosive, volatile, or all of the above. If you find yourself writing, "Destroy this after you read it," or "Don't let anybody else read this"....Do it yourself. Destroy it then and there. Do NOT send it. Never incriminate yourself or anyone else in writing. It will come back to haunt you every time. You may think, "Aw, it's worth the risk." Don't bet on it.

Bye Bye Birdie

Think of your emails, memos, letters, etc., as though they were birds. Once you let them go, where they go nobody knows. They could end up on the loading dock or, Heaven forbid, in the front office -- or maybe on the evening news, as your larger than life foul-up gets an embarrassing close-up from a network camera.

Office politics and personal relationships can undermine your purpose, no matter how justified or promising it may be. Such forces can rarely be detected ahead of time, but to charge headlong without at least trying to assess your situation is like skipping nonchalantly through a mine field.

* Are you sending an appropriate message to an appropriate audience at an appropriate time?

* Will your purpose ignite any smoldering issues between you, management, supervision, peers, subordinates, customers?

* Will you be aggravating any existing personality or ego clashes among friends, enemies, supporters, neutrals?

* Is your objective consistent with your organization's culture or "climate"?

* Is anything at stake? Recent or pending promotioins? Favors due, debts owed? Pride, image, recognition on the line? Sacred cows in jeopardy? Territorial, charter, responsibility disputes?

* Is the air foul on this subject? If something goes sour, could you defend your position?

* What is your credibility with this audience? Should you first get preliminary approvals, opinions, advice, support?

* Are there any pressures or priorities that could block your purpose? Do any laws, policies, regulations apply?

* What objections or resistance could your objective create? Are you putting anyone, including your boss, on the spot?

* Are you reacting emotionally? Emotions subside, but the printed word remains.

Remember: Once you let go of what you've written, it could end up anywhere. Finally, to thine own self be true....and keep an up-to-date resume handy.

So You Want to Sound More Natural, More You

When you begin to write, picture your reader(s) sitting across from you, listening to your every word. Now, let that silent voice inside your head start talking to them. Start with the bottom line, a summary sentence, something that captures the essence of what you're trying to get across.

Something like: "I don't think the new Web site is attracting customers the way it should."

As you hear yourself say it, write it down. In a way, all you're doing is taking dictation, your own dictation. But let the little voice in your head keep talking while you just keep on taking note of what the voice is saying.

You may want to make some notes before you start. That way you'll stay on track as you move through your message. All the other elements of good writing still apply (create a purpose, a message, an outline of some kind, key points, conclusion, and a call to action if appropriate).

To keep your writing sounding more natural, more conversational, more like you, let the voice in your head "talk" silently to your reader while you record it on paper or on your PC screen.

Don't get hamstrung by the one drawback preventing so many professionals from writing clear, persuasive emails, correspondence, memos, proposals, you name it. Do not let the act of writing intimidate you.

When you sit before that screen, trying to think of what to say, how to start, what to do, you are asking for trouble. Start by visualizing your reader sitting across from you, then start "talking." And remember, your reader doesn't have all day. Get to the point, add the necessary detail, and give it a proper ending. Your reader will love you for it.


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