Written by Thomas M. Schmitz
June 26, 2007
People or Search Engines?
> If you build your site for humans and do it in the best
> way for them to understand what your site is about and
> what they should be doing there, then the search engines
> will understand and reward you.
> If you build the site for the engines, then they will figure this
> out (they are smarter than you) and penalize you for this.
- Brad Waller, LED Digest 2346
I heartedly laud the intent of this statement, though I feel compelled to split a few hairs.
Search Engine Optimization is not an either-or proposition. One does not choose between people and search engines. The best practice is to design your website, to write content, and to network with other website operators in ways that appeal to BOTH humans and search engines. For myself it takes four times as long to write great copy that is optimized for both marketing and organic rankings than it takes me to write a piece purely for marketing to people (or strictly to compete for rankings were I so foolish). The difficult part is to combine the two disciplines and still stick the landing; in this case to write copy that will achieve both goals.
Fortunately there is plenty of overlap in human marketing and marketing to search engines. For example, I suggest to people that they layout their code and attribute their copy with the same organization and clarity that they would want if they were using a text browser or a web reader for the visually impaired. This forces designers to make smart use of HTML element attributes like ALT for images and TITLE for links. It forces you to use CSS for layouts so that your copy follows a logical progression within your code.
By designing with integrity for humans you can definitely meet many SEO goals. However, human oriented design cannot inform (or replace) many essential SEO tactics and techniques, for example, controlling the flow of link equity. In fact, it is possible that blind devotion to people skills may actually interfere with rankings success.
To succeed with search optimization in competitive markets one must study, understand and implement specific SEO knowledge. This is no different than knowing how to place words such as "you" or "free" in your copy to maximize conversions. It is no different than including the shipping fee on a product page to minimize shopping cart abandonment. Just as these marketing tools have nothing to do with organic search optimization there are SEO methods that have nothing to do with marketing, to humans.
And that is the point. No one would tell you to start a business without a marketing plan. Why would you create a website presence without an SEO plan? In fact, your SEO plan is a marketing plan; it is a marketing plan designed for and aimed at the search engines. By treating people and search engines as two distinct and vital audiences and by marketing effectively to both you will maximize the only number that truly matters, sales or conversions.
Thomas M. Schmitz
SEO Analyst & Social Media Marketing Consultant
Portent Interactive
http://www.portentinteractive.com
 this post appeared in
LED Digest 2437
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