Do you know that we have left the Age of
the Information Economy behind and are now well into the Age
of the Attention Economy? What does this mean?
It means that if you rely upon the Internet
to conduct your business, or you work for clients who do,
the age of putting up a web site and getting instant results
are long gone. Now the writing on your web page clamors for
the attention of web surfers who are lured by the frantic
actions of the billions of pages currently indexed on the
web.
To give you some perspective, Google alone
indexes over 7 billion pages. Therefore, to survive means
to grab people's attention and you do that by using good digital
rhetorical skills.
Now there's a scary word – rhetoric.
In my case, rhetoric was a term the nuns
used to throw around in regards to the essays we wrote in
English class. You know, the reading, writing, and rhetoric
thing?
Go back now to first year high school English;
remember the purpose of an essay? It is to grab your reader's attention and persuade her to
adopt your point of view, to agree with your argument.
And that is what rhetoric is all about:
rhetoric can be defined as the art of persuasion: of using
words, either verbal or written, to catch attention and persuade
readers to think, do, or believe what you want them to think,
do or believe.
Mechanical Rhetoric
Now let's apply this concept to search
engine optimization. The first challenge is to grab attention.
How do you do that?
One big way you do that is by ranking high
in the search engines. Because then, when a user enters a
relevant keyword term, the site you’re working on will
come up as one of the (hopefully) top 10 web sites!
Okay, so working backward, how do you write
so that a site ranks high?
First, you fill the site
with good, solid, well-written content. You offer value to
visitors.
The search engines measure content and
score it according to its value to users. In other words,
you use the skills of good rhetoric, which include the skillful,
artful, and meaningful use of words.
Second, you select keywords
that your users are most likely to use to search for what
you offer on your site. The trick here is to select keywords
that are likely to be used, but that won't draw a big number
of web sites in a keyword search. Here’s where you need
to work with an SEO expert, or employ the use of special keyword
software.
Third, you get a lot of
quality sites to link to your site. These links are viewed
as "votes" for your web site, and the "better"
the site in the search engines' eyes, the higher the value
assigned to the site. The search engines look at the quality
of the content on sites linking to yours, as well as their
relevance.
Fourth, the site needs
to be designed in a search-engine friendly way. How do you
do that? First, don't use Flash. You know those sites that
have that introductory page where it says "Click to skip?"
Well, the search engine crawler never gets beyond that page
and therefore doesn't index the web site.
Also, avoid using JavaScript. Same thing
there, the search engines get lost in the complex code it
generates and that's the end of their crawl on the site.
Next, make sure all the
internal site links are working, and make them text links
that contain your keywords.
Then, if you use image maps or pull down
menus for navigation, make sure you also have textual navigation
on the same page.
Last, pay careful attention
to the content of your Title tag, Description tag, Header
tags, and body text. As for your Keyword tag, Google doesn't
even look at it, but make sure you still have it contain all
the site's important keywords. Also, make sure you use your
keywords in each of these in a relevant, normal way. Some
webmasters make the mistake of loading these tags with keywords
in a manipulative, phony way: the search engines can see right
through this tactic and will penalize the site accordingly.
Also, in the body text, bullets, italics, and bold are weighted
more heavily, and if possible, use keywords here as well.
The items we've discussed above comprise
the mechanical aspects of SEO rhetoric for your site. Now
let's talk about textual rhetoric.
Textual Rhetoric
The all-important, coveted visitors to
a web site are always just a click away from moving on to
some other site they find more interesting, so you have to
try and keep them with you until you accomplish your rhetorical
goal!
Wow, there's a term of academic gobbledy
gook.
Seriously, if you go back to our definition
of rhetoric, it is to persuade or convince someone to accept
your argument. Well, your argument is whatever the objectives
are for the site. - Are you attempting to sell something?
- Get leads?
- Pass on information?
- Deflect telephone calls away from your customer service department?
The first step in creating good web site
rhetoric is to define your purpose as specifically as possible.
Now the question becomes, who is your user?
Do you have demographic data: age, schooling level, location,
job, hair color? Find out as much as you can about who your
web site is geared to: if you sell men's work pants, then
your audience is going to be
- Mostly male
- Over age 18
- Blue collar
- Located in anywhere, USA
- Middle class, etc.
So, with these two pieces of data: your
purpose (to sell workpants) and a description of your target
audience, you're ready to rock and roll in crafting your web
site text.
Let's look at some general rules for web
text that apply to all readers.
First, the screen carries
approximately 1/3 the amount of information and text that
an 8 x 11 inch piece of paper holds.
Second, people don't like
to read text in long paragraphs on the screen; they prefer
short paragraphs and sentences, bullets, headers, and graphics
(but don't put text in the graphics because the search engines
can't read it). Also, reading speed is decreased by 30%.
Third, avoid scrolling:
a good rule of thumb is 250–300 words per screen.
Fourth, write in a style
that is clear, concise, and easily scanned.
Fifth, use keywords, but
use them accurately and with relevance
Okay, so now back to your purpose: make
it obvious and clear what you want the readers to do –
your rhetorical point!
Here are some possibilities of what you
might want them to do:
- Call
- Check order status
- Download free software
- Find information
- Give feedback
- Join
- Purchase a product or service
- Request something
Then, make it easy for them to get to:
- How they purchase by credit card
- Any forms they need
- Relevant contact information: email, phone, address, etc.
So, there you have it, some stuff you can
put in your arsenal to get started for your own web site or
to service other people’s sites.
Remember: having a successful web site
means doing some advance planning and following guidelines
that have been proven to work.
So, get out there, work hard, and go get
'em!!
Mary Anne Donovan
is both a scholar and a practitioner, a balance that "gives
her the best of both worlds: the theory behind digital communications
and the hands-on experience to know what really works and
what doesn't."
She is in her tenth year as a professor
of technical writing and business communications at St. John
Fisher College.
Mary Anne has worked with computers since
they first came out of the closet and into more general application,
starting with computerized quality control systems for Kodak
photographic and printing processes and now with the fine
points of SEO theory and application.
Email:
maryann5@frontiernet.net
Company Profile:
Donovan-Wright Associates Inc
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