Web Content & Strategies

Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the process to get your search engine to the top of the search rankings. There are several factors that will influence how high your website ranks in searches, including the domain name, the content on the site, age of the site and how pictures are labeled. A most important factor is how many links you have to your site.

There are several tools available to find our what backlinks a site has earned. One is the Yahoo Site Explorer at www.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ and typing your URL into the search box. Another is the online tool Open Site Explorer at www.opensiteexplorer.org. The Open Site Explorer also shows the anchor text (the words the site includes in the link), the page authority and domain authority of the site linking to your enquired site. This is valuable information because some inbound links are more important than others.

All this information is important because the more significant the site linking to you, then the more value the search engines will put on your own site. Links from paid link services or link-swapping sites can actually sink a website's search engine rank.

Inbound links from trusted and established websites are very valuable because they show the search engines that your site is useful and trusted. So it's important to build up your number of inbound links, but only using legitimate means, like asking for links from sites you like. Sometimes you'll get inbound links to your site because someone on another site found your website and liked it. These inbound links are very nice surprises (unless they happen to come from a "bad neighbourhood" on the web, i.e. porn or illegal gambling sites).

The great thing about these tools is that you can use them to also identify who is backlinking to our competitors. All this information is important to develop an effective SEO strategy.

It seems that we are constantly bombarded with buzzwords and idioms.  Buzzwords are words, or phrases, created to give meaning to a popular idea that’s shared by a specific group of people.  Buzzwords are common in business, politics and in the media, but should they be used in your web content.

The web and social-networking websites, such as Twitter, have helped to increase the use of buzzwords, and have accelerated the move of buzzwords into mainstream language.  For example, googling has started to appear in dictionaries, and becoming widely understood and used as a verb to describe searching the internet with the Google tool.

Using buzzwords in web copy has both advantages and disadvantages and, while it is generally frowned upon, it can be a useful tool to create more meaningful content.

Advantages of using buzzwords in web content 

Buzzwords are usually created to simplify complex ideas, so they can be useful when you are trying to limit your website’s word count or to simplify the language on your site.

When you want your website to target a particular market, then buzzwords can help you to increase the relevance of your website to the target market and their web searches.  Buzzwords can also help you to connect with your target audience. 

Disadvantage of using buzzwords in web content

The biggest disadvantage of using buzzwords, and usually the main argument for leaving them out of web content, is that only select groups of people understand the meaning of some buzzwords.  SEO is widely used on the internet, but if many of your visitors are new to internet marketing then SEO might have little or no meaning.   It might be more meaningful to explain in full that your processes will help a website to improve its ranking with internet searches.  

Buzzwords can also date your web content.  Buzzwords which are popular one day might fall out of favour the next.  This can do more damage to your website than good.  Also the meaning of some buzzwords can change over a short period of time or can be ambiguous and using them can confuse your web visitors. 

If you decided to include buzzwords in your content, then you should always ensure that your target market clearly understands the definition.  You don’t want to include a glossary of terms on your website just to get your point across.