What Odor Is Your SEO?
Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 8:01 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine
Kevin Lee, in a column on ClickZ, has written a terrific piece on an important SEO idea: SEO scent.
“Search scent is an extension of the information scent concept, initially developed by scientists at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Information scent centers on the how users navigate the Web, both within sites and from one site to the next while pursuing information on a specific topic. The research illustrates that humans forage for information on the Internet in much the same way animals follow scent and visual cues to find food. Scent is essentially an application of user interface optimization best practices, and search scent is a specific niche based on the fact searchers are even more wedded to a particular information-gathering mission than surfers or casual browsers.”
The idea is that you should go beyond simply defining good keywords (which is certainly essential) and trying to get good backlinks (which is really helpful). If you want to direct visitors to your site — and just as importantly, keep them there while you deliver your message — spread things around that the user will want to forage for.
The research suggests that to keep them wedded to your landing page you need to keep the visitor interested in what’s there. Sounds obvious, no? Easier said than done, of course. Designing a page that has lots of interesting content creates sticky pages. If they feel motivated to move away, give them someplace to go that moves them where you want. The goal is to keep them from hitting the back button and moving off your site.
How to do that will vary with product to product, naturally.
One key method is to be different. You have many competitors who sell the same item. Outfox them by offering content that’s different. Instead of splashing your pages with recommendations from people the visitor has never heard of, make up a wacky character of your own. Find a jpeg or create one that represents that character. Give him or her a voice. (No talking paper clips, please!… unless you sell office supplies.)
It’s no accident that “different” and “differentiate” look so similar. You need to stand out. Your odor has to be attractive and unique.
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