Lauren
If you’ve been working on improving your search engine optimization (SEO), you’ve probably heard the term site crawler. While site crawlers, also known as spiders, might sound a bit creepy, they can actually prove to be beneficial to your business.
These spiders are bots that are used by search engines to index website content so that these sites can appear in search results. In the same way that the index or table of contents of a book can help readers find the information they need from a book without any hassle, by collecting data from (or crawling) a website, these bots help people find what they are looking for with ease when they search keywords online.
Have you ever noticed that when you use Google or Bing to surf the web the top search results often have the exact information you need?
This is not by coincidence! It’s all thanks to a site crawler. Site crawlers go through websites and index content so that search engines are able to provide the most relevant and valuable information for their users.
How site crawlers work
There are millions upon millions of websites on the Internet, making it impossible for spiders to index each and every website.
Instead, they start by indexing well-known websites- ones that receive plenty of page visits, ones that other websites frequently link, and ones that have engagement that indicate that the information on the site is likely to be credible, relevant, and valuable.
Once web crawlers have indexed these sites, they will start to index the URLs that are hyperlinked on these sites and so on.
The sites that provide the most accurate and useful information end up at the top of search engine results pages, increasing the likelihood that users will click on these sites.
Optimizing your website for site crawlers
If you want your website to pop up first when people search for words and phrases related to your industry or niche, it’s important that you optimize your website for site crawlers.
Here are a few ways for you to improve your technical SEO and your website content so that you can boost your search engine rankings:
Use relevant keywords
Conduct keyword research to see which words and phrases your target audience use to search for products and services in your industry.
Once you have these keywords, use them in your meta descriptions, blog posts, website headings and subheadings, and your website title (without keyword stuffing) so that web crawlers rank your website as one of the top, most relevant options for people who search those keywords.
Optimize your site for mobile users
Search engines like Google and Bing prioritize websites that are mobile-friendly. If your website is not optimized for mobile users, it won’t be ranked highly on results pages after it is indexed by site crawlers.
Try using tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see if there are adjustments you need to make for your site to be more accessible for mobile users.
Improve your loading speed
Now more than ever before, consumers are looking for instant gratification and results. If your website takes more than a few seconds to load, consumers will leave your website and visit a different site instead.
Site crawlers note bounce rates and website traffic when indexing websites, so if people are frequently leaving your website in favor of your competitors, your website will not rank as highly as theirs will.
Fix or remove broken links
Site crawlers cannot crawl broken links, so having hyperlinks that go to nonexistent pages or links that are otherwise broken will cause your website to drop in search engine rankings.
Frequently check your links to make sure they are all leading to the appropriate sites.
Provide high-quality content
If you write blog posts that your target audience finds valuable, they will be more likely to visit your website time and time again and share your blog posts with others who will visit your site.
This increased traffic will allow search engines to rank your website higher on their results pages.
One of the most effective ways to make sure you are sharing high-quality content on a frequent basis is to work with a content writing company, like Content Cucumber, that offers SEO copywriting services. When you work with experts who understand the ins and outs of SEO and content writing, you will receive blog posts that are tailored to your target audience that will also include all of the information that site crawlers look for when indexing websites.
Learn about Content Cucumber’s content writing services when you request a free demo today!
