Business Web Sites

Technical communicators reveal how y they constructed and updated their Web sites to attract both human and search engine audiences. Human and search engine audiences y can invite different Web site communication techniques. Techniques associated with higher y levels of search engine traffic include writing longer Web page titles and generating higher numbers of inbound links. Purpose: This article explores how businesses offering technical communication services used search engine optimization techniques to attract prospective clients to their business Web sites. Method: The study draws on a survey of 240 principals of these businesses, brief interviews with half of them, analyses of their sites, and tallies of inbound links to their sites. Results: The interviews and analyses reveal how businesses oriented their sites not only to a human audience of prospective clients but also to an audience of search engines. Businesses that reported search engines to be more helpful in directing traffic to their sites had sites that, in comparison with those of their less successful peers, featured longer home page titles and received more inbound links. Conclusion: Though search engine optimization techniques can increase Web site traffic, technical communication businesses varied widely in how extensively and expertly they used such techniques