How do people land on FlorenceArtists.com anyway?
© March 2005 by Susan Canavarro

One of the interesting and mysterious aspects about creating and managing web sites is the search engine optimization following web site creation, notably, how to make one's site more visible to search engine robots, thus more visible to potential non-robot customers. That's the mysterious part. Every good image or literary effort should have some mystery to it to keep us hooked! I'm beginning to understand optimizing for the search engine is a speculation game, somewhat like gambling. There are no true hard and fast rules, no guarantees, only suggestions and speculations as to how it all works. A lot of mystery and intrigue!

Using keywords is one aspect of this process. And reading my keyword statistics is the interesting part. Most host servers will track the individual keywords and phrases used to find your site and give you a list in your stats. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the Google or MSN or Yahoo search tool bar to find what they are looking for on the WWW.

Knowing the words people use to find your site is important. When you know what they are, and how often they are used, you can figure out ways to use these valuable words in your page content and Meta tags (only the robot knows!) to enhance traffic to your site - within limits. As a web designer, you want to be careful not to do keyword spamming by using hidden keywords or overusing them on a page particularly if they are not relevant to your content. But spamming can be anything that might appear, to the powers-that-be at Google, as an attempt to beat Google at its own game. If you try that, they might drop you flat like road kill and make it very difficult to get your site listed or indexed again! In other words you're dead! Who's to say what is spamming and what isn't? You got it - Google!

Typically, the usual keyword culprit used to find FlorenceArtists.com is an artist's name or the name of an art medium; many times it's a phrase which includes location; and the name of the site itself - Florence Artists - which is showing up on page one these days! But sometimes there are some very unusual words and phrases. These I find intriguing. They are enigmatic enough not to be specifically for FA, but yet they are leading people back to FA - if people are willing to wade thru hundreds of pages of search results - which is, in and of itself, a very interesting phenomenon. Considering…

It is commonly accepted among web development experts that most web searchers like you and I will not click beyond page 3 or 4 of any search results. Google brings up a million results and we only look at 3 pages - about 30-40 URLS. So I find it incredible that people are searching beyond page 4, up to page 20 and beyond. And I know this because, if the keyword is listed in my stats, it means somebody found their way back to FA using this word.

Today, with time on my hands, I decided to see just how many pages I would have to click thru to find the link or Url which led to FA with the following odd keyword phrases. Keyword phrases are in Bold:

Cezar chavez - this name led directly to one of FA's California artists - Antonio Castro. The result was on page 2 and the name Cezar Chavez, which is spelled wrong, was not even in the Meta tag keywords for Antonio's résumé page - only in the content.
Chicano artists skeletons - search results on page 1 for Antonio Castro. Chicano and artists are the 2 words you'll find in the page content, not the Meta tags.
Phoenix local artists drawings - this phrase led to Katheryn Davis' page for a reference to her current exhibit of watercolors at the Fuller Theological Seminary in Phoenix AZ! Results found on Page 3. I did not use Phoenix in the Meta tags, only in the content of the page.
Mailing address - siuslaw public library - search result Page 1 - the GALA Art Walk page.
Super novas - I'm sure this one led to a PDF file of Burney Garelick's article about one of the GALA Art Walk events that I published on FA.
Interview introduction myself - this was the most intriguing and puzzling phrase. What could someone hope to find with a search for these 3 words? I just had to try it. Amazing stuff. All sorts of interviews of artists, authors, political figures, and oh yes, of "myself" - whoever that is! In over 1 million search results I found "let me introduce myself…" and "allow me to introduce myself". And I found writers like Noam Chomsky, Sue Grafton, African American writer Bell Hooks, actress Briggitte Bardo, spiritualist Yogi Amrit Desai. And I found travel writers like Bill Bryson, Frances Mayes, Paul Theroux; artists John Cage and Adrian Piper and many more. I found "I interview myself. Bah humbug!" and another one called "A Dog's Life" - which is a Playstation game and the site leads to an interview with the artist/writer/creator. The main character-dog, Jake, apparently has a little indigestion problem which makes itself apparent as flatulence! "A Dog's Life" find is interesting in light of our upcoming exhibit at Art Like A Wheel, "Dogs Riding In Cars" where most of the images are probably going to be a bit humorous and might cause a lot of giggling. I just couldn't stop clicking through the Google results, so I set a number - 100 - okay, I'll stop at 100. But the pages stopped at 94. A good thing or I might still be clicking through in fascination at all the interesting material you can find with this one enigmatic keyword phrase. I never found the FA page it led to, but suspect it was one of the interviews I did with two California women artists.
Wedging clay on the floor - this one led me to my stepsister's interview. She works with clay. This result came up on Page #4. These specific words were not used in the Meta tag keywords, but perhaps found somewhere in the page content.
Arches of charles river bridge - and this is amazing - led me to Charles Draper's thumbnail page #3 on FA where there is a picture of his Siuslaw River Bridge photo. The search result came up on page 20, but somehow the search engine robots made the connection from Charles River to Charles Draper. Super novas galore!
Down pillows - pillows on FA? Never!

It was a very interesting world wide trip. Try searching sometime with an obscure keyword phrase. Think of it as a game. A mind game. A very frustrating mind game. And only do it when you have nothing else of value to do. There is a lot to read and learn out there!! If you do it, I'd be interested to hear what you find - the keywords used and the search page results that lead back to FA.

The point of this long story is that people are finding Florenceartists.com. It may be they find us accidentally through some very odd keywords, but does it matter as long as they are finding us? Like in the book "The Accidental Tourist," they are "accidental searchers," and the system is working.

An email friend says I have a "twisted" mind - this for the fact that I paint paintings without any people in them. And because sometimes I "accidentally" turn out a decent painting and I don't know how or why it happens. He also sees my work as a Rorschach test for my inner feelings, and I see his responses as his own Rorschach. Did you know you can find out more about your friends by paying attention to how they interpret your work? Interpreters beware! I know my friend is kidding me, but in some ways, just maybe he's right about my "twisted" mind if I enjoy reading and finding humor in keyword web stats!