In my last entry, we talked about how search engines and customers read the same content. But, let's face it, a search engine spider has a different agenda than your average web surfer. What happens time and time again is that the on page content gets skewed towards the search engine. So, imagine if I were writing a page for this site, for a search engine optimization company where the keywords would be "seo" and "search engine optimization". I might write something like, "SpinShark provides world class search engine optimization seo services to businesses both large and small, but especially those businesses that can benefit from search engine optimization or seo as we in the search engine optimization business call it." While this sentence is particularly egregious (and not very clear), I have done my job as an SEO writer in cramming my keywords into a sentence that arguably makes sense.

Great. Thanks a lot. Would you buy something from a company that wrote that sentence? I wouldn't.

 So, as a website owner, if you include content like the terrific example above, that means the search engines see your value proposition, but your customers don't. Remember that your website is for your customers. They are the people that buy your products and services, not Google. Write for your customers, make you point clearly and directly, and the spiders will eat that stuff up too. When creating website content, think about your audience. Focus on your brand, your value and your product. If your traffic isn't where you need it to be, hire us. We will be happy to tweak your content and your site in a search engine friendly way, but we won't make the mistake of writing for search engines. Google has yet to buy anything from any website that we've ever built.

Remember, your content defines how your customers see your business. Focus on them. If you create content that is compelling to your readers (and has the right keyword density, tags, titles, and descriptions on a well written W3C compliant HTML (oh yeah, that is what we do)) then your business has the right foundation on which to thrive.

Customers first.

Search engines second.