The Good Spider

Introduction

Why do spiders get a bad name?

I think it must be something to do with the way they look. People don’t see spiders as “cute” do they?

And over the years spiders have been depicted as the villains in many books, films and music.

I’ve done a bit of research and it seems that it hasn’t always been this way. In some civilisations the spider is revered. Even now the spiders are considered benevolent in many cultures. In China for example, spiders are held in high regard and people call them “good luck” or “happiness” spiders. In India spiders are sometimes spread like confetti at weddings. And many people believe that killing a spider will bring financial downfall.

And of course, there’s  always Peter Parker, aka “Spiderman” – what a superhero!

Why Spiders?

You might be wondering why I’m writing about the cultural history of spiders.

Of course, the reason has to do with my business name – “Wicked Spider”. I often get asked about that name.

Here goes……

I love spiders!

Well, to be more truthful I love SEO spiders.

I love all the spiders in the world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

I’m not scared of these spiders.

I welcome these spiders.

Actually, I do all I can to attract these spiders. Not just to my website but to all my client’s sites too.

I should start a spider appreciation club I think.

What are SEO Spiders?

SEO spiders are sometimes called “web crawler”, “Googlebot”, “internet bot” or just “bot”.

Search engines wouldn’t work without SEO spiders. Actually there wouldn’t be search engines without spiders.

When you type in a word or phrase in the search box you wouldn’t get any websites to look at without the spiders.

If I typed in “SEO Spiders” like this:

And if the spiders didn’t exist, I wouldn’t get any web pages to click on.

So, when you search for something on Google the web pages you see are only there because of the work of the SEO spiders.

The spiders are actually programming code, made by Google, to crawl around the internet looking for websites with good quality content. The spider finds content and stores it in a massive digital library.

When you type a word in Google to find out something you get a list of websites that hopefully give you the information or help you are looking for.

Where would we be without Google?

Google only works for us though because of the spiders collecting all the information.

See, I told you there were good spiders.

Why do I want to get the attention of the SEO Spiders?

We have websites for lots of reasons. Publishing a website means we want people to see it. If we didn’t, we’d scribble something in a notebook and keep it locked in a desk drawer. I could have done that with this article couldn’t I? But then you wouldn’t be able to read it or benefit from the advice.

The work that the spiders do helps more people see the content you are publishing.

What can I do to attract more SEO Spiders?

Here are two techniques we can all do to attract the spiders and therefore get more people seeing our websites:

Publish more content

You can either create more pages on your website or publish more blog posts, like this one, to attract the Googlebots, or spiders.

Creating new pages usually takes a lot more time, even for me, than publishing new blog posts. That is the reason why integrating a blog with your website is so important (if you have a WordPress website and would like help with this let me know).

I won’t go into all the ways you can use a blog other than to say most business owners use them to write about their area of expertise and to make announcements about their organisation.

When you publish new content, the spiders get notified and hopefully visit your website.

They catalogue the information you’ve published ready to show to someone when the topic is asked for in Google.

The more high quality, original content you can get put in the catalogue, or Google library if you like, the better. Google sees you as an expert in your field and shows more people your content.

Yes, it’s a bit like the snowball effect – the more you publish the more people see your work.

Link from one page or post to another

So, Step 1 to attract the spiders is to publish more content.

Step 2 is to link from one piece of content on your website to another page or blog post on the same site. This is called internal linking.

If you are at all a visual person, you can think of cute, little spiders using these internal links as stepping stones to navigate around your website. And the more these spiders move around your website, the more of your content will be available for people to see in Google.

An example of an internal link

Here is an example of an internal link from this post to another on my website (you don’t need to click on the link –  unless you really want to of course):

“Head over to my beginner’s guide to SEO if you want to get an overview of how it works.”

There are sophisticated approaches to getting the best from internal linking but just to make these simple links from one post to another is a super way to help spiders find more of your content.

Conclusion

You can see why I love spiders and more importantly why I’m publishing blog posts on a weekly basis. And I think I always include an internal link to another post or page too.

I hope I’ve helped you see spiders in a new light.

They are very helpful and really rather good for business.