Babble Main Page SEO
Jan 25th, 2006 | Comments (0)
I've written a couple times recently about the benefit of having a chat log on your site. Having a chat log that can be indexed by search engines on a regular basis can get your site to pop up on some weird, unforeseen search results pages - thus potentially reaching whole new audiences.
These added perks are mostly out of your control, however. It's up to those participating in the chat log as to what gets said, and therefor, what gets indexed by search engines. But what about the indexable stuff that is under your control?
I did a little research today to see how the phrases on the main page of Babble are working. I'm sad to report, not that well. And it's mostly my fault.
Babble requires that you sign up for the site in order play. So when I designed the main page of Babble, I wanted to really sell the game as being so fun you couldn't help but sign up. So I plastered the main page with glowing testimonials like "Your game is awesome!" and "Very addictive!!" This probably does a good enough job in getting a new user to sign up when they come to the site. But what about actually getting people to the site?
As anyone who's even briefly studied SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques knows, it is critical that you add text phrases to your main page that match what your target users are typing into search engines. I was clearly not doing this. I was too focused on the sales pitch, and not enough on getting people to actually find my site.
Here's how the testimonials on the main page of Babble are doing on Google:
> great game (78th)
> awesome game (253rd)
> i love this game (226th)
> very addictive game (10th)
> wonderful game (41st)
So "very addictive game" is working for me, but the others are pretty weak. And these probably aren't very popular search phrases.
Here are the searches I think Babble should be matching well against:
> boggle (57th)
> boggle online (86th)
> free boggle (171st)
> boggle solver (14th)
Not very impressive. It appears the main page of Babble is in need of a little SEO facelift. This is a good reminder to always keep SEO in the back of your mind when you're writing "sales" copy on your site. You not only have to sell the user on your product, but you have to make the user actually gets to your site first.
At least Babble still has the market cornered on woodland sprite goatlike.
These added perks are mostly out of your control, however. It's up to those participating in the chat log as to what gets said, and therefor, what gets indexed by search engines. But what about the indexable stuff that is under your control?
I did a little research today to see how the phrases on the main page of Babble are working. I'm sad to report, not that well. And it's mostly my fault.
Babble requires that you sign up for the site in order play. So when I designed the main page of Babble, I wanted to really sell the game as being so fun you couldn't help but sign up. So I plastered the main page with glowing testimonials like "Your game is awesome!" and "Very addictive!!" This probably does a good enough job in getting a new user to sign up when they come to the site. But what about actually getting people to the site?
As anyone who's even briefly studied SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques knows, it is critical that you add text phrases to your main page that match what your target users are typing into search engines. I was clearly not doing this. I was too focused on the sales pitch, and not enough on getting people to actually find my site.
Here's how the testimonials on the main page of Babble are doing on Google:
> great game (78th)
> awesome game (253rd)
> i love this game (226th)
> very addictive game (10th)
> wonderful game (41st)
So "very addictive game" is working for me, but the others are pretty weak. And these probably aren't very popular search phrases.
Here are the searches I think Babble should be matching well against:
> boggle (57th)
> boggle online (86th)
> free boggle (171st)
> boggle solver (14th)
Not very impressive. It appears the main page of Babble is in need of a little SEO facelift. This is a good reminder to always keep SEO in the back of your mind when you're writing "sales" copy on your site. You not only have to sell the user on your product, but you have to make the user actually gets to your site first.
At least Babble still has the market cornered on woodland sprite goatlike.
