If you are planning to launch a website or redesign an existing website, one of the most important aspects you will want to start planning for is your site’s text content.
As the site’s owner, you are automatically considered one of the site’s “subject matter expert (SME)”, if not the only SME. Even if you are hiring a web designer/developer to build the site for you, your expertise will still be a valuable asset when creating the text content of the site.
Think of your website as a magazine or catalog. Pages with only graphics and/or images might look pretty, but readers are merely going to scan for some accompanying text to read and then move on. Search engines are the same way. You need to give readers/visitors and search engines something to digest. Being the SME, it is the site owner’s job to make sure the content portrays your business as an authority in your area.
WHAT MAKES FOR GOOD CONTENT?
For starters, you are going to need at least 600 words on a page MINIMUM. Whenever possible, keep your sentences short or of average length. Paragraphs should be two to three sentences each. Presenting visitors with a wall of text is a turn-off.
Keep the content concise and informative. Proper headings should be used when needed to break things up. Headings and paragraphs should contain important keywords for your site. Keywords are words that most appropriately describe the theme, product, or purpose of your site. In other terms, keywords are what potential visitors will enter into a search engine.
For more on keywords, take a look at this article at Surfer SEO.
For every one hundred words on your page, you should have 1 to 2 keywords included. Thus, your 600 word page would have six to twelve keywords. Using more than that is considered “keyword stuffing” and could possibly hurt your search engine ranking. If you are using less than that amount of keywords, then your content is not focused well enough and will most likely be downgraded compared to other competing sites.
A couple of very important places to include a keyword: In your main (h1) heading and in the first paragraph of the page.
With all SEO rules, proper formatting is key. Your content might look great on screen. However, if it is not formatted properly in the backend, that will only confuse search engines. If you do not know whether or not your content is formatted properly, you should find someone who does.
Other elements that make for good page content:
- Image that properly optimized and include alt text
- Internal and outbound links
- Ordered and Unordered lists
- Limited use of italics
- Use “power words” to peak reader interest
- Good contrast between text and background colors
- Avoid using duplicate content or content copied from other sources
Of course, it should go without saying that your content should be as free from spelling and grammatical errors as possible.
That’s it for this week’s SEO tips. Do you have a website issue you’d like some help with? Just drop Ben Ehlers Design a line.
Take care, have a great rest of the week!
