Converge strategies of structure, scanning, and spiders

Now, as we covered there are specific things search engine spiders need to see in the code in order to determine the page's relevance. There are all those things that your readers and visitors need to see on the page that will help them understand and see the vital key words that are important to their search. The wonderful thing about this is that both need the same thing. You see, your users are looking for those key fixation points, the bold keywords, keywords in the title, in headlines, in bullet points, in bold text, or in sublinks.

Those are what people look for in order to determine that this page is relevant to what I was looking for. And I can find the information that I need. The search engines look at the HTML markup and make sure that the words that are being repeated are the ones that are being utilized in the markup. And so, they're looking not just at the headline but what's contained in the code in the h1 tag. They're looking at the title. They're looking at words that are associated with links.

And so, the same ways that you're users browse the page is very similar to what search engines use to determine relevancy. And so, when you're building your pages, and building a hierarchy of content, it's important to think like a newspaper. You see, a newspaper has a clear, primary headline. Everything is contingent upon the information that is on that big bold headline. And you want to be sure that people see that. And then, all the other sub-headings are smaller, but they present details about that primary headline.

And so, all of your subheadings need to be contextual. If you have images, you need to describe the purpose of those images, either with captions or alternative attributes. And then, your content needs to be organized for clear scanning. I always laugh about newspapers, as, when I travel, there's a newspaper outside my hotel room door. And typically, I spend no more than 20 seconds looking at the front of the newspaper, just to determine what's happening in the world. Your users do the very same thing when they come to your website.

They spend a few seconds gathering the information that's on the page and what jumps out to them are those clear headlines, sub-topic headlines, and then if the content is organized for easy scanning. And so, search engines and your readers need the same things. The coding of these fixation points are used by search engines to determine the relevancy of the words and the focus of the content. Your readers will need these words to be bigger, bolder and more obvious than the rest of the words so that they can determine relevancy.

Provide clear pathways through the content, utilizing these words and the markup that's available. And the more organized your content is with clear headings and clear instructions, the easier it will be for both users and search engines. So, do what's right for the user. Create a page that is logical and clear for them and you will be rewarded by the search engines.