Search Engine Crawlers

Is your site designed to make money? Or to gain traffic? Or maybe both? What if I told you there is one thing that you MUST do in the design phase of your blog/website to ensure that you have a decent shot at both?!?! Do you know what Search Engine Crawlers are? Let me explain!

In order to increase income earned, you must increase traffic, right? Well, in order to do that, you either must know a lot of people or you need to get into the search engines. Preferably on the first page. I am no expert but this was pointed out by someone whom I consider an expert at this

First: Google’s crawlers crawl your blog searching for updated material that can be submitted to their search engine, just like Yahoo and MSN and others. There is a way to format your site in order for the crawlers to crawl the content first. That is, by the way, what you want and the key to this whole trick. It makes no sense to have the menu, or anything else read by the crawlers first. As for your readers, well fortunately, they are given the ability to make decisions, we hope. Therefore, your menu can be listed in your sidebar just as easily. Actually on a lot of blogs I have been to, the menu is both on the side and top, which makes no sense.

So then you ask, well, “your blog has the menu at the top?” Yes it does, and currently I am working to change themes for both, TheYoungGuy.com and HardwareBlogPortal.com to improve my blog traffic.

Second: How do you test this. Well, being in this wonderful world we live in, there is a way do just about everything and this is no exception. Google recommends you use a program called LYNX TEXT BROWSER to visually see your blog in text only format. It is a wonderful tool to use. Lynx will display your blog in the exact order the crawlers will read it.

A few key things to understand. One, crawlers do not read javascript. Whats this mean? Well, it means that your beautiful adsense ads are not crawled by the crawlers. Therefore ad-placement will not effect the crawlers. And Two, You may have read posts from top names, like Darren Rowse, better known as Problogger, state that he prefers “writing for humans”. You have to understand the difference in writing the content and designing your site. I 100% agree with Darren on this topic. When it comes to writing the actual posts, it is important they don’t sound robotic in nature, like they are designed for the crawlers. But setting up your site to allow the crawlers direct access to your content is very important.

Bottom line, when choosing your blog theme, make sure you think about what you are truly trying to do. If making money, driving traffic, or both is your objective, make sure your theme is setup in such a way, the crawlers will see content first. I hope this helps some of you out, it really did me.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2 Responses to “Search Engine Crawlers”

  1. KJsanta Says:

    Interesting, informative, but somewhat confusing to most? I think most “Newbies” would not understand what is ment by “website design, or web content”, without an example? Website / Blog design ie: photos, layout of site etc. Content ie: actual wording on website / Blog. Yes, I also agree; speak as if you are speaking to your neighbor on the Blog.

    The Best
    KJ

  2. TheYoungGuy Says:

    I can understand your view on that. I appreciate your feedback. And actually that is a very good point. The idea behind my site is to provide easy-to-understand info for the new bloggers.

    So with your feedback, I will move forward in an easier to understand format.

    Thanks again.

Leave a Reply

CyberCoder Tag Theme by CyberCoder
WordPress Powers TheYoungGuyDotCom