It's All About Visibility
8 It’s All About Visibility This chapter looks at the critical tasks for getting your message found on the web. Now that we’ve discussed how to prepare a clear targeted message using the right words (Chapter 5, “The Audience Is Listening (What Will You Say?)”), we describe how online visibility depends on search engine optimization (SEO) “eat your broccoli” basics, such as lightweight and crawlable website code, targeted content with useful labels, and inlinks. In addition, you can raise the visibility of your website, products, and services online through online advertising such as paid search advertising, outreach through social websites, and display advertising. 178 Part II Building the Engine Who Sees What and How Two different tribes visit your website: people, and entities known as web spiders (or crawlers or robots). People will experience your website differently based on their own characteristics (their visual acuity or impairment), their browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and so on), and the machine they’re using to view your website (a TV, a giant computer monitor, a laptop screen, or a mobile phone). Figure 8.1 shows a page on a website as it appears to website visitors through a browser. Figure 8.1 Screenshot of a story page on Model D, a web magazine about Detroit, Michigan, www.modeldmedia.com. What Search Engine Spiders See The web spiders are computer programs critical to your business because they help people who don’t know about your website through your marketing efforts find it through the search engines. The web spiders “crawl” through your website to learn about what it contains and carry information back to the gigantic servers behind the search engines, so that the search engine can provide relevant results to people searching for your product or service.
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