It sounds like the subject of a freak horror movie – spiders roaming free, crawling over whatever attracts their attention and dragging tasty titbits into their web. They do this just as well on the internet as they do in real life. While in real life, the idea of being crawled over by spiders is most people’s nightmare, on the net it’s a very nice dream indeed.

Luckily, internet spiders are far easier to attract than the real-life kind. This doesn’t mean that getting their attention is easy, but it’s easier than filling a room full of nasty insects.

Ensuring that every one of your pages is found by a search engine spider is one of the easiest steps you can take to improve your search engine ranking. Search engines respond well to sites with a large number of pages.

The first thing that most websites do to attract spiders is fill their pages with keywords. This is helpful, as long as it doesn’t amount to keyword stuffing. The next step for most sites is to place keywords within their file naming conventions and tags. Usually, a good optimisation strategy will also take URLs into account. These are all good things, but miss out on one element that should be considered from the start: navigation.

These SEO tactics, while essential, are severely impeded if a site’s navigation is clumsy. Search engine spiders, just like their real-life counterparts, like things to be ordered. A navigation design that uses as few clicks as possible will also impress your site’s viewers, resulting in repeat traffic if the site is easy to use. This doesn’t mean that every site should link from your home page, and in fact linking everything to your home page confuses both viewers and search engines.

Navigation can be hidden if the system is written in the wrong code. When it comes to navigation of your site, simple is best. Reinforce the relevancy of each page by planting keywords in your navigation.

Once you have optimised your site, support this optimisation through external links and mentions. External links are like the vibrations that go through a spider’s web, telling it that there’s a tasty fly out there somewhere. Getting links from related sites will help lead the search engine spiders to find you.

SEO tactics can draw the attention of search engine spiders, but your ranking depends on your site being a consistently tempting offer. You will have read about the benefits of fresh content, but one added attraction is that it makes your site even more crawlable.

In summary, to attract the attention you want from search engine spiders:
1. Offer tempting titbits in the form of related keywords
2. Make the path easier for them to follow
3. Draw attention in the web via external links
4. Invite them back with fresh content

These are just four of many things you can do to appeal to search engine spiders. For more advice on how to optimise your site, contact us at SEO Consult.

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