Word Clouds & Spiders

A couple of weeks ago I posted a two line blog that gave an example of a word cloud together with a link to the original source text. Since then, coincidentally, word clouds have featured as graphic devices at a number of conferences that I have attended and in more than a few pieces of promotional literature that have been thrust under my nose! It seems that word clouds are becoming trendy again. Whether the fashion will last is, perhaps, questionable; but word clouds have their uses beyond trendy graphics. So my original word cloud blog has been deleted and replaced. For those that know, it is worth remembering that word clouds were also known as "tag clouds"; for those that don't, here's a heads-up.

Put simply, tag clouds, word clouds or "weighted lists" are a way of visualising the prominence or otherwise of words in a body of text. There are many uses of word clouds, including technical applications to do with web site navigation. But at the most basic and most useful level, word clouds can be used as a simple test of web site content at a time when content is ever more important for search engine optimisation [SEO] - see my August 2011 blog on Google Panda Guidelines.

Along Came a Spider...
Search engines use "spiders" to trawl web sites and rank them in various ways. Many of the ranking criteria revolve around the quality of the textual content, including the prominence of keywords that are relevant to the subject matter and might be used for Internet searches. I have always argued that rich content is a prerequisite for Internet effectiveness, whether for high search engine rankings or (far more importantly in my view) for engaging and retaining the interest of visitors. Word clouds give a snapshot of the texture of written material and, within limits, can indicate where it might be adjusted to increase its attractiveness to spiders.

A Word Cloud based on the first section of my "Destination Marketing Revisited" blog.

To view the original content, Click Here.

A Word of Warning
Strong subject-orientated copy will, in the majority of cases, produce spider-friendly content automatically. If your word cloud seems to give predominance to unimportant words, or if the most desirable key words are under-represented, it is obviously possible to fine-tune the text by reducing the occurrence of irrelevant words or increasing the frequency of the most significant. But it is dangerous to sacrifice readability to search engine optimisation - stiff and contrived content will lose readers very quickly; and search engines are not the only way of driving traffic to web sites, as regular readers of these blogs will appreciate. Finally, search engines are adept at spotting content that is heavily repetitious in the use of key words.

 A Word Cloud based on the "Marketing" page of the BFA web site.

To view the original content, Click Here.

Create Your Own Word Cloud
There are a good number of web sites that offer free word cloud creation, as a google search will reveal. The examples shown here were made using the Wordle site: click on the "Create" tab to begin. A number of graphic styles are available. Converting the result into a reproducible format is a little complicated, but the best route seems to be:

1) Click on the "Open in Window" button to generate an applet of the cloud.
2) Make sure the applet is the live window and take a screenshot (hold Alt and press Print Screen). This saves the applet on your clipboard.
3) Open a Word document and press Ctrl + v to save the applet.
4) Click on the applet, go to Paint (select All Programmes from your Start Button, then go to Accessories > Paint).
5) In Paint, go to Edit > Paste then Save. Enter a file name and select a destination (say, My Pictures in My Documents) and save as Jpeg.
6) Crop the image to eliminate screen edges.