by Mitz 40 comments

Search Engines vs Humans: Who Do You Work for?



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SEO is not just for search enginesWith the advancement in IT and the enhanced domination of everyday use of Internet, the business of websites and blogs have evolved too.

Most of us here are involved in this emerging business of building websites and making money online.

This is one of the easiest businesses to get into (at least I think so) and it’s not until webmasters become more experienced that they actually realize the importance of search engine optimization in regards to their website success.

However, it appears that search engine optimization, as we know it, is responsible for a lot more than just getting free traffic from the search engines.

I will explain more. But first..

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Well you will see many interpretations of what search engine optimization really is. But I like to listen to the big G (Google) for my definitions as they are the ones supplying my websites with thousands of visitors per day.

According to Google:

Search engine optimization is about putting your site’s best foot forward when it comes to visibility in search engines, but your ultimate consumers are your users, not search engines.

I like to break search engine optimization down into two areas: On-page and Off-page.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the way you present the information on a web page to please your website visitors first and then the search engines.

  • Your navigation system which includes internal linking
  • Keyword targeted quality content (which essentially equals relevant content)
  • Easy to crawl content (Meta tags, descriptions, titles, etc)
  • Optimized images (re-sized, correct format, ALT tags)
  • Fast page loading times (under 3 seconds)

Off Page SEO

In off-page SEO, the major focus is upon the number of relevant and valuable links pointing to your website.

Links can be counted as a vote for your website.

This might sound like an easy task but it can become more complicated…

The words that make up your anchor text for the link must be relevant and highly related to the content that is on the page that the person lands on. This means that before you back link to a page, you need to have a clear idea of what keywords that page is targeting.

This is a very brief explanation, but hopefully now you know what search engine optimization is.

And if not, just pick up Ana’s free SEO report, where she explains all this and more in detail.

What else is SEO for if not for the search engines?

As you can see from the quote from Google, SEO is also ultimately aimed at your website visitors.

What is the point of all the fancy SEO, if when search engine traffic reaches your website, they simply hate it?

That’s why…

First impressions do count

If you have a WordPress website, it’s definitely to your advantage to buy premium WordPress themes as soon as you can afford to.

Trying to customize free WordPress themes is not only a waste of time, but they also lack many features that most premium themes include by default.

You are probably wondering what a WordPress theme has to do with search engine optimization.

Well the theme that you choose will determine if you have easy to navigate menus, excerpts on the FrontPage, featured boxes, easily added social media buttons, and many more features that make up a great user experience.

After all Google said the visitor comes first.

To see which theme Ana chooses to use for Traffic Generation Cafe, take a look at her Thesis Theme review and learn about all the SEO benefits Thesis has to offer.

Internal linking is not just for SEO

Internal linking is a part of search engine optimization, but does not just benefit the search engines by making your website easy to crawl.

Internal linking is a fantastic way to get your website visitors to travel through your website.

Creating relevant and informational internal links means that your website visitor stays longer, and also reduces your bounce rate.

Backlinks do more than SEO

When you build backlinks to your site, it is usually for search engine optimization purposes.

However, links can be beneficial for other reasons as well, and the best one I can think of is for referral traffic.

Even if you are not optimizing for a certain keyword, you might place a backlink on a high-trafficked website and get loads of visitors from doing so.

On the other hand, if you don’t get any website visitors through the links that you make, you will always rank higher in the search engines for the keywords that you targeted and get visitors that way.

Therefore one way link building is a win-win situation and is not always just for the search engines.

Why would Google tell us to optimize for the visitor first?

This is easy to answer.

The website visitor that lands on your website is also Google’s customer.

If Google does not serve their customers the most relevant results, theiy might turn to other search engines.

Therefore Google tells us to optimize our pages for the website visitors first, which also happens to be to Google’s benefit.

Hmm.. What now?

Search engine optimization is about what people are typing in to the search engines to reach your website and what they do when they get there.

In reality, are we ever really optimizing our websites for the search engines alone?

Search engine optimization is an important part of our Internet businesses, however as you can see from the examples above, SEO is not just for the search engines.


traffic generation cafe comment below

{ 40 comments }

Boutros February 19, 2012 at 5:54 am

Thanks for this great post (with an attractive title).
I definitely work for humans with quality posts.
Boutros.

Stan January 15, 2012 at 9:28 pm

Everyone should balance these two factors as well as they can. There are no exact numbers because everyone has a different niche and methods of bringing traffic, but an approximation is enough to make it through. The bad things start happening when you focus more on one side and ignore the other.

Astro Gremlin January 6, 2012 at 12:05 am

I write for the robot crawlers so that they will open the gate for the humans. Without our effort to appease our new robot masters, our fellow humans will never reach us. Nice article, Mitz.

Ana Hoffman January 6, 2012 at 11:40 am

Good point, Astro. Of course, there’s no reason why we can’t create the kind of content that serves both!

Chris R. Keller from Profitworks January 2, 2012 at 2:33 pm

What one search engine optimization technique has been the most beneficial for your website?

Mitz January 2, 2012 at 3:05 pm

Hmm. Not an easy question. Providing you already have great content, I probably would have to say internal linking as it counts like a backlink but also reduces bounce rate and helps your humans navigate your content.

This is something I would never neglect.

Gab January 2, 2012 at 3:10 am

The fact that we are working for SEOs that are not even living things rather than humans when we blog in my view is a big insult to our creativity. When we write blogs, we use our skills to do so and the entire SEO race and manipulation is ultimately what decides our fate in the visibility that we get. It is a sad but true fact.

Mitz January 2, 2012 at 2:05 pm

I do not see it like that. I am only using SEO so more humans can see my content and hopefully enjoy it. That is my main goal because we must remember that without real people typing a query into the search engines, the likes of Google and Bing would not even exist.

Cheolsu January 1, 2012 at 9:56 pm

One must always write for humans than just for search engines. Writing for search engine can get you some initial visitors, but eventually it will die down without repeat visitors. Great quality content with a little SEO can go a long way.

Mitz January 1, 2012 at 10:37 pm

I agree that “Great quality content with a little SEO can go a long way.” This is the only way to go!

Anne January 1, 2012 at 11:52 am

Great post. I try to do all of these with my blogs and hopefully I can benefit from all the hard work and hours spent.

Mitz January 1, 2012 at 10:35 pm

Yes it is hard work that will pay off in the end. :)

Kukzee December 31, 2011 at 12:14 am

Hi Mitz, good post to remind people that we are not just doing SEO for search engines but for searches who want answers as well. I remember the old keyword-stuffed sites when I was doing a research for my company. Totally useless.

@Ana, I love the new look of your site, much cleaner and professional. I will never forget the time I fell in-love with SEO thru this site. Now I am taking clients here in Singapore for SEO. God bless! Happy New Year!

Ana Hoffman December 31, 2011 at 3:38 pm

Glad you like it and Happy New Year!

Raj December 30, 2011 at 3:57 am

I know many blogs that write long winded content aimed at only the search engine visitors. To those people – Check your bounce rate. I’d be surprised if your article does not get lower and lower in the search engine index because not even one person is able to finish reading your article and people find it so long that they hit back and go to the next search result instead.

Stop writing for search engines alone – Write for your readers, for a change.

Mitz December 30, 2011 at 3:30 pm

Yes I agree people still write for the search engines and it is sad.

Ming Jong Tey December 30, 2011 at 3:08 am

Hey Mitz,

I would think that ultimately it is for the reader. So, first thing is not to write it the robot way (i.e. repeat keywords) unless it looks natural. You might rank on the front page of Google but if it doesn’t convert, the SEO effort is wasted.

So, I will still do all the necessary on page SEO without looking unnatural to please both Google and human :)

Mitz December 30, 2011 at 3:29 pm

Yes making a page suit humans and the search engines is an art that has to be mastered. When you can do this you will dominate as this method produces the absolute best content.

Mark December 30, 2011 at 2:39 am

Hi Ana :)

Sad to say, I have spent most of my time working for search engines trying to tune and tweak my SEO to perfection.

For the most part, it has been a waste of time.

For 2012, I am focusing on building up some newsletters using thebitbot as testing grounds.

Additionally, I will be focusing much more on conversion rates which is definitely a function of writing for humans.

As far as I know GoogleBot has never purchased anything from me. LOL!

Mark :)

Ana Hoffman December 30, 2011 at 9:29 am

I hear you, Mark! We need to remember who actually pays us…

Mitz December 30, 2011 at 3:27 pm

Very true! Google does not buy but brings the buyers to us. (hopefully)

Jens P. Berget December 30, 2011 at 1:37 am

Hi Mitz,

This is very interesting and an easy to understand SEO article. It took me a while to realize that first impressions are very important. I haven’t seen any articles on this, but I believe that if you do everything right when it comes to SEO, and you get to the top of Google, if you’re visitors leave your website fast (and 100% bounce rate), you won’t be at the top for very long. Because Google listens to the behaviors of your visitors. So if you have a terrible design, and way too many ads, or bad content, it doesn’t matter how much excellent SEO tips you’ve implemented.

Am I right? :-)

Mitz December 30, 2011 at 3:26 pm

Yes that sound all very true Jens! I totally agree that there are many factors that can determine a successful page.

Bhupendra December 29, 2011 at 9:20 pm

Hi Mitz,
This is one of the great post with great information for every blogger and i really understand that there is more to SEO than Google.

Mitz December 30, 2011 at 3:24 pm

Thanks Bhupendra, glad you enjoyed! :)

Justin Mazza December 29, 2011 at 6:17 pm

Hi Mitz,
I remember when I first started my blog and I used a free WordPress theme that had nothing in the form of SEO, social sharing and other benefits. Once I got a “good theme” to use I could see what I was missing by using a lousy free theme.

Mitz December 29, 2011 at 11:01 pm

Yes this happens to everyone I guess..:) I remember using a free theme and noticing a great difference when getting a paid one. You do not realize what you are missing until you try.

Kristen December 29, 2011 at 6:02 pm

Great article. I do think it’s important to keep in mind that SEO isn’t just for the engines. It’s really important for visitor usability, too. I have a couple of a static niche sites and I also have a blog, and I’ve found that a clean, professional layout on both kinds has been essential. In fact, cleaning up the layout on my original niche site brought almost instantaneous increase in ranking (and income), and since then I’ve been convinced. I try to do what I do with SEO in mind… and then consider how it benefits my visitors, the people I want to help, too :)

Mitz December 29, 2011 at 10:59 pm

Great way to do this Kristen. I have also cleaned up a site by changing the theme to something simple and doing the right SEO. It has definitely worked for me also.

Wasim Ismail December 29, 2011 at 3:36 pm

Hey Mitz
Totally Agree SEO is not just for Search Engines, there’s more to it than just ranking in search results, It’s a way of building your brand, and presence online. It’s also a way of improving your online business, making your site better, visually, user friendly, and also a way for you to connect on social networks, and the list goes on.

Mitz December 29, 2011 at 4:59 pm

Your are right! It is simply the best way to do this business as there are so many benefits!:)

Jay December 29, 2011 at 1:03 pm

I like the fact that Google places such weight on quality. There is nothing more annoying than finding some rubbish, unreadable spun article
Quality for humans is definitely the way forwards

Thanks – Jay

Mitz December 30, 2011 at 3:22 pm

Very true Jay!

Ileane December 29, 2011 at 10:14 am

Hi Mitz! Great insights to let people know that there is more to SEO than Google :) I’m using Thesis Theme too and I don’t think people realize that when they use Thesis they can eliminate a bunch of SEO plugins that can slow down the load time of their blogs. I really like your point about referral traffic. It’s really a win-win because people end up getting what they want and they keep coming back for more in the long run. Thanks Mitz!

Mitz December 29, 2011 at 2:31 pm

Hi Ileane! Hope you had a nice break! (if you even had one?)
Yes Thesis Rocks and I think all my friends are using it! It is just so simple, SEO friendly, and not heavy.

Ed December 29, 2011 at 9:43 am

Based on my 30 years of experience in the health care field, it seems as if I write good relevant content that’s current, the SEO takes care of itself.

If I try to put in key words here and there, readers notice it is out of place. Maybe Google does too.

Ryan Hanley December 29, 2011 at 8:54 am

First fantastic article. Really quality content at an easy to understand level.

Second, my interpretation of Google is that Google’s mission is Solutions. Someone types a problem into Google and Google wants the to provide the best Solution. If you set your site up with that singular idea in mind, you should do well.

Thanks!

Ryan H.

Mitz December 29, 2011 at 2:28 pm

I agree totally Ryan. If you can solve someones problem you will have great success. After all that is why they are searching, to solve a problem or gain valuable information. People hate it when they land on junk websites that promise a solution and never give it.

Ray Higdon December 29, 2011 at 6:56 am

Haven’t visited in awhile, thank you for writing this, I see so many people focus on keyword, keyword, keyword and what they are writing is something no one in their right mind would follow or want to read each day. Thanks for always bringing da value =)

Mitz December 29, 2011 at 2:23 pm

Hi Ray
Yes focusing on keywords and SEO only is very mechanical and does not please your readers! :)

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