Use Old Words When Writing for Findability

Source Article: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search-keywords.html

One of the greatest tools on the web is the search engine. often people get on the internet with only a topic in mind. Showing up on that first page of search results is the all important goal for any website. If you're not on that page, you're probably not going to get many hits.

This article gave many tips to getting your website on the search results page. For one, don't use unfamiliar words to describe your content. People search for the familiar--even if it's boring. It's a popular thing to use new words or made up words that sound catchy to us. However, nobody knows those words. Nobody searches for those words. Internal vocabulary isn't going to get visitors, only employees. If your web site is not well known, don't use the brand name. That's why their searching. They don't know your company. Nobody searches politically correct terms either.

Getting in the searches can be one of the most important things for your website. Using words that nobody searches is going to take away from the power of your content. At least til your website is a household name, keep it simple.