SEO Can Fix a Ghost Town

Is your site a ghost town? Do your only visitors seem to be faded friends and family, drifting aimlessly in and out? Can you even remember the last time someone shopped at your store or dropped by to chat at the barbershop?

Sometimes you need to break something down to its most basic components to really understand what it is all about. The term SEO is thrown about almost carelessly by some; they understand what words the letters stand for, but not what it MEANS. Understanding the concept behind SEO requires a step back to look at the bigger picture.

S stands for search. Search is what gets typed in the search box by searchers searching for information. (See a pattern, here?) Search is active, it is in motion, it is always changing. If nobody is looking for you, you will never be found. Search is what drives…

…the engine. E stands for engine; this can mean Google, Yahoo, MSN Live Search, or any number of smaller competitors. The engine is nothing without the users; it depends on search to make it run, or else it is an empty train running down the track. It stops at Dubuque, Decatur and Des Moines, but unless someone is aboard, pointing out the sights seems a little ridiculous.

On the other hand, if the train is full of visitors but the track loops around your site, you may as well be a ghost town. You have to convince the railway company to lay track through your settlement and make you a depot. This is where the last letter comes in…

…O is for optimization. You have to sell your site to the searchers and the engine. Just wooing one or the other doesn’t work. You have to convince Google (or whoever) that your site is the most relevant, then you have to convince the searchers that you have what they need.

You can do this in several different ways. When you are ready for Google to start scheduling stops in your town, start using keywords as petitions and use links as signposts. Make sure you have the fright to deliver, and make it worth their time to drop customers on your doorstep. If you have a quick load time, the engineer won’t have to wait around for his passengers to disembark, and can go on his way. If your site is poorly designed and doesn’t grab their attention, they will be mobbing the ticket counter for the next train out.

Don’t let your site become a ghost town. Get started on SEO today!