How to make your content findable

Sep 22 2004

Since my post lamenting the problems I’d been having with my laptop (Windows XP reinstall, mup.sys and Service Packs 1 & 2), this site has received almost 170 search hits for variations on “mup.sys” and SP2. The first hit came only 3 days after I’d posted the article, and I’m currently number 17 on Google for a search on mup.sys.

So my intention – to hopefully help anyone having problems with those offending files or packages – was fulfilled many times over (I hope). Someone even later searched for “mup.sys”+”watchmaker project” – presumably they found the information so useful they had to come back a second time!

Anyway, my point is that somehow the content, heading or title of the entry combined to place the page high enough within the key search engines to generate traffic. Google is now my second highest referrer (after 9rules, thanks to Scrivs mention of my Blog Design article), whereas prior to the entry it was way down the list.

Search Optimisation – A Simple Plan

While I’m sure that professional search optimisation professionals have setups like this coming out their ears, I thought it might be useful to create an artificial scenario to establish just how important the relevant parts of a page – title, headings, content, links, etc. – are to the relevance search engines place on that page.

So here’s a simple test. Below are ten links to five different pages, each containing the hitherto unknown term “Whippersnatcher” in various combinations of file name, page title, an h1 heading, and a link in the text. Each page is linked to twice from here – once using the search term, and once using a generic link, to test the assertion that it is the text used to link to the site that is most important, particularly to Google.

As this site is spidered by Google and other engines fairly regularly, we’ll check the search results for our chosen term in a couple of weeks to see what order they come out in.

The expectation is obviously that the one with all the elements will be seen as the most relevant, but it will be interesting to see how the others fall into place behind it.

Filed under: Internet, Design.

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Previously: Postcard from Stressville

Next: Classic(s) search results


Comments

Stuart
2798 days ago
The results should make interesting reading. As a rule I try to make my post titles such that it is easy to understand just what the subject of the post is. I also wrap them in h2 tags. I use h1 for page titles (remember I have more than a blog going on). I also get lots of hits from Google.
#1