Say it fast.  “Search engines see what?”  I don’t know.

This isn’t a post about Google Webmaster Tools or Google Analytics.  Although, it’s because of those two services that I’m here at all to write.  Ya dig?  I mean it’s because of them that I know how many visitors arrive  because they’ve entered the search terms “stolen bike seat.”  Who knew that was such a popular topic?  When I wrote the post back in March, originally as an email entry to my mailing list, I had no idea it would be one of the more popular entries on the site.  I wrote it out of frustration for my then recently missing seat and posted it.  Whoa.

The point being, since I’m not going to get around to it unless I state it specifically, you’re not always going to know what site visitors are looking for, so write everything that interests you, or me.  Someone, somewhere may find it entertaining, interesting, or useful.  You may want to do a little better job than I do most entries, and try to relate your post to its headline.  For almost as long as I’ve been emailing, the subject line has always been of very little importance to my writing, and so I’d just shove in there whatever nonsense came to mind at the time.  Not so useful when writing searchable material.

Essentially, I’m ranking high for keywords I’m not targeting.  Taking into consideration I don’t have any specific targeting goals for this particular blog, I guess that’s to be expected.  Or at least it’s some kind of side effect of just writing whatever comes to mind.  That’s the point, though.  And I’m getting a better idea of how all this SEO stuff works.  The next step is conversion — making long time readers out of folks who show up accidentally.

Search Engines See What was first posted to justinll.com on August 20, 2008.