20 Ideas for creating traffic rich,
search engine friendly pages
by
John Alexander
Sometimes questions will arise around the subject of gateway information
pages or doorway pages. People have heard that "doorway pages"
are BAD and some have stated that search engines "hate doorway
pages".
For clarification on these type of issues, let's start by explaining some
simple ground rules looking beyond the jargon
and terminology.
Do Search Engines Hate Doorway/Gateway Pages?
To answer this we'll examine it in two steps.
Let's understand:
1. What it
is that the Search Engines "HATE"?
and then...
2. What type of pages the search engines "LOVE"?
With this approach it will help us gain some understanding of the criteria
that is most important.
1. What the Search Engines HATE:
a) To put it simply, search engines despise low quality doorway pages
that contain little or no useful content. A few years ago these
type of low quality doorway pages were rampantly produced as a
means to try and trick the search engines. Looking at it from the search
engines point of view, why even publish a page if all it contains
is a couple of lines of text and an "enter the store" link.
Pages with VERY LITTLE VALUE to the reader, do not belong
in a search engine's index.
b) Search engines also despise any kind of duplication or use of mirror
pages. Again, little or no content (often just garbled text or
keyword rich paragraphs that have no real value) were reproduced over
and over and cluttered up the search engines. These pages were supposedly
going to bring great traffic but the bottom line is that
they were and still are all labeled by engines as Spam.
c) Search engines hate any attempt made by Webmasters to manipulate pages
optimized with content unrelated to the actual Web site. Some Webmasters
were guilty of all types of trickery to try and attract clicks regardless
of the site content.
Understanding these issues, clearly you could NEVER blame the search
engines for their war on Spam and low value doorway pages which contained
no useful content or information.
Next let's talk about
2. What
pages the Search Engines LOVE:
a) Search engines love pages that far "information rich" and
contain useful, original content that will
actually make valued
reading to the online visitors.
b) Instead of doorway pages (or pages with no value or little useful
content), the term "information rich" can be used to
describe a page loaded with useful, quality information. Search engines
love pages that are content rich and able to stand on it's own merit. A
quality information page is also part of the overall Web site allowing
visitors to obtain more relevant and useful information having easy
navigation through the Web site.
Instead of lightweight pages with no content, today's pages need to
contains high quality information, which is relevant to
the online audience. The information rich page is 100% quality, put
together with research, relevance, thought and care.
No tricks are ever needed.
Next Question is.....
What kind of information goes into
creating an information rich high
performance page?
Invariably this question often comes up when I am teaching one of our
live hands-on workshops. People need to understand that this is wide open
to all the discoveries you make while researching your target audiences
behavior. How you can meet the audience's needs exactly, is only limited
to "your imagination" and the most
effective way to present the information you know they are
looking for, back too them. You want to give them what they
"really
want" as opposed to what you "think" they want and do this
right up front.
The focus is on creating genuinely "useful content"...
The focus is on
creating genuinely "useful content" for your ideal target
audience of "potential customers" who happen to be already
out there searching for you.
Not only is this what your visitors want, it's also the key to success for
search engine acceptance. You will never run in to trouble with search
engines by offering lots of original, quality content that is interesting,
useful and of high value, to your online readers.
In brief, key to success for attracting your target audience, is doing
quality research on your target audiences searching
behavior and learning to identify their needs and what they are searching
for and then, giving them what it is that they
really want.
Okay, so what kind of information might a information rich page really
contain? That will depend on what "your research" reveals
of course, but here are about 20 rough ideas
just to get you
started thinking in this fashion.
Here are 20
Ideas for High Performance Information Rich pages:
Your high performance, information rich pages might be any of the
following (but not limited just to these either):
1. A Questions and Answers information rich FAQ page.
2. An introductory story related to the appropriate Web site theme
(something that is compelling or educational on topic).
3. Interesting and original statistics which you have discovered through
your research, are in high demand by your audience.
4. An interesting interview with someone (make it exclusive and original).
People love to read about other peoples experiences and
or opinions and views.
5. It might be a page loaded with various product reviews with an emphasis
on benefits of each in comparrison.
6. It could be a theme related feature article or story.
7. It could be a detailed tutorial loaded with valuable "How to"
or "instructional" advice.
8. Your information page might even be a biography about someone's
life that people are looking for detail on. Of
course it should relate to the topical interest of your site's
theme.
9. Your pages might something with a current events or newsworthy or hard
news angle. Your audience is probably looking for
interesting news if you take time to study what they are
searching for.
10. Your information rich pages might want to contain detailed historical
information that your audience is seeking.
11. There may be room for the use of information pages that use some humor
or emotional content that is still of good value.
12. Would there be value to having a questionnaire which asks your
audience a series of important questions. Remember that like
real life, most Web based businesses are about building rapport
and relationships.
13. You could build an index to a whole library of similarly themed
topics and all though your articles would all be similar
in theme, each individual information rich page would contain useful
and diverse subject matter. Remember high value to your readers but all
original (and no duplication in content).
14. What about an information rich page offering an entryway into a
useful, interactive section like a message board perhaps detailing terms
of use for the message board.
15. It might be a page containing an interesting advice column on your
chosen theme. Just old fashioned "good reading" which offers
your readers advice or solutions to their challenges.
16. Your information page might be a reference page loaded with
interesting, inspirational or famous quotes quite popular
with all types of personalities.
17. Your pages might contain a related territorial map (yes images can be
used most effectively with text)
18. It might be a sales letter but remember the emphasis is on quality
content and originality. Things like detailed product
reviews or content that emphasized some value added layout.
19. It could be a community related page with important localized community
information. Tremendous value for Web sites that are looking for region
specific traffic.
20. It could be any of the above suggestions with a seasonal angle relating
to Christmas, Halloween, Easter, or something else appropriate to
the Web content within your main theme.
One of the best ways to come come up with original ideas is to think
laterally about "your audiences needs" in comparison to
how they are searching on the major search engines. For more insight
on how to research your audience's "realtime
behaviours" you
may want to visit http://www.wordtracker-magic.com
Has this article stimulated some creative thought? I certainly hope
you've enjoyed it and may you really move forward with some lateral
thinking and you'll see that these ideas are only scratching the very
surface. I encourage you to explore creatively and think outside the
box. I especially encourage you to dig deeply within the real-life
behavioral trends that are revealed through my Wordtracker Magic
techniques.
Are you looking for more stimulating thought? If you would like some
one-on-one skill building with me (in person) for your online business,
then please give thought to attending our live, hands-on
SEO Mastery Workshop.
In just a few days and we'll open up your scope of understanding (but more
than that), you'll come away with top skills that you can use immediately,
to gain top visibility to your ideal target audience. Be greatly
encouraged because the best is yet to come!
I hope
to have the privilege to work with you in the near future.
Highest
Regards,
John Alexander
About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search
Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with partner Robin
Nobles as well as online search engine marketing courses through Online
Web Training. John is author of an e-book called Wordtracker
Magic and co-author of the Totally
Non-Technical Guide for A Successful Web Site.
John is also an official member of the customer support team at Wordtracker.com.
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