Ability Multimedia

A Life of Obscurity: the un-trafficked Website

March 25th, 2008

In the nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde wrote, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

In the twenty-first century, the chill of the un-trafficked website fills us with just such a fear. A website existing in obscurity is a wasted opportunity.

Search engines provide the greatest opportunity to be visible to and connected with the right audience. They are the most desirable and sometimes essential medium for publicizing and realizing the potential value of your Website. Obscurity is the result of missing this opportunity.

Since search engines are often the first audience for new Website content, they become the first judges of what is noteworthy or worthwhile on the web. Relevance is the criterion most discussed in search engine optimization (SEO) instructions, and that is a significant test. High rank begins with relevance to your desired keywords. Search engines are not interested in websites that are not relevant to the keywords. Websites that are not relevant rank low.

High rank begins with relevance, but that is only the beginning. After relevance comes interest. The search engine evaluates human interest in your Website. How many other Websites link to yours? Are those links relevant? How many visitors do you get? How long do they stay? Quality is also considered. A higher rank than similar sites also results when content seems worthwhile. What makes it worthwhile is that it is high quality, pertinent, useful, interesting, timely, fresh, unique, or the best of its kind. Low rank results when, at least from the perspective of the search engine, content fails some or all of these.

In the end we want people to visit and use our Websites. How does search engine optimization pertain to human visitors? Once you get the people to your website you must engage them with content that is high quality, pertinent, useful, interesting, timely, fresh, unique, or the best of its kind. As frustrating as it is to try to divine the set of magical properties that will bring your Website to the top of the search results, it’s a pretty good exercise in making a Website that does what you want to do anyway.

~Dianne Bengtson
Partner, Ability Multimedia

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