There are two parts to this: What is a good page? & What will my visitors like?

Only you can answer what your visitors want - but in general people want one of 2 things when searching online.

1) They want to find information on a topic; or
2) They want to purchase a product or service

So your visitors either want information that you provide or they want to purchase your product/service. Often, people want information on a product or service you provide.

Simple!

You need to create a website that provides a lot of information on your product or service - then provides an easy way for your customers to purchase.

Wait - did I say information on your product or service…that's not right. As we learned in yesterday's lesson, people do not want a product or service - they want to solve a problem or fill a want/desire. So you need to create a website that provides a lot of information on how to solve the problem your customers are having or how to fill the wants & desires that your customers have.

Are you seeing a theme? If you focus all your marketing efforts on your customer instead of your product, then everything falls into place.

Ok, but what is a good page?

For a search engine, a good page is one that they can easily find the information on your site.

You have to understand that search engines don't see what we see. Have you ever seen the "view source" of your website? That is what the search engines see, just the HTML - no pictures - no colors - just the text.

This means that if you use any advanced features like frames or flash - then many search engines cannot see what your website says. Also, if you have any words that are actually images - then the search engines can't see them either.

You can have a beautiful site with $1000's worth of graphics and a cool flash effect - but it does not matter - because the search engines can't see any of that.

But it is not just images and Flash that search engines don't like. They also have problems with JavaScript, dynamically generated pages, dynamic menus and framed pages. Also, if you use Front Page or DreamWeaver - or most other html editors - then they add code that many search engines don't like.

So a good page is a clean, simple page that uses text & html to clearly communicate your message to your visitors.

I am not saying that your page has to be plain - not at all. There is a lot of things that you can do with HTML & images (that don't contain words) to make your page look professional. But, if you want to make the search engines happy then stay away from all those other things & focus on providing high quality content.

Amy & Dearl
Editors, Trafficology.com

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