How to Improve Search Engine
Placements with Content
Just how important is content to the search engines? We all
know that well written content is paramount to maintaining repeat traffic
to a web site but just what qualities peek the 'interest' of the major search
engines? This can be a convoluted topic where the unique characteristics of
each search engine are considered to create highly appealing content. In most
cases, however, the general concepts are all that you will need to know to
attain a positive search engine placement, especially when you are focusing
on less competitive goals. After all, accuracy is not always required when
your target is as big as a barn and you are only a few feet away.
For maximum effectiveness, content should be:
Unique
Content should be written uniquely for each page of your web site. Why? Well,
when a search engine spider indexes each page, it constantly searches for
any patterns that match known spam practices. For example, an old (and unfortunately
still used by less knowledgeable 'optimizers') spam tactic is to create numerous
pages with basically the same content to get multiple placements under a single
phrase.
Fresh
Search engines are always on the lookout for web sites that offer information
useful to their users. If Google found new content every time it indexed your
web site, your site would instantly gain credibility because this would indicate
that your site is constantly evolving. Following the logic of a search engine
(and they are all essentially logical), an evolving web site is likely to
be more interesting to searchers since the content is up-to-date. As a result
your site has a better chance of obtaining better placements and maintaining
the positions gained.
Relevant
Relevance can not be emphasized enough! It is important that when you create
the copy write for a web page you try to maintain the overall relevance of
the topic. In other words, if your web page has been created to describe the
process of "varnishing teak" then maintain that focus throughout
the copy. Do not skip to a totally unrelated topic such as (an extreme example)
how to change tires
this will dilute the keywords on the page and it
will make it more difficult for a visiting search engine to determine the
placement that the page should achieve. A great deal of the SEO (search engine
optimization) process is ensuring topical clarity throughout a web site. By
ensuring that the copy on each page clearly indicates a desired topic (in
this case the page focuses on teak varnishing), you will leave a search engine
with little choice but to place your web site under your desired listing.
Visible
Seems simple right? Well, there are many ways to unwittingly damage the visibility
of a beautifully written web site. Many of the following elements are straight
out of search engine placement 101 but they must be noted:
-
Do Not Use Frames: There are few worse
blocks to search engine indexing than framesets. If your site is using frames
and all of your content is found within a frameset then you may need to
reconsider a redesign. The "why" of this is simple; the home page
actually has no content on it other than meta tags and a title because the
page is only there to 'call' the framesets (which are the pages with the
content). As a result, the search engines only see a page with a few links
on it and some Meta tags; a very poor recipe for search engine placements.
- Do Not Create a Site Totally in Flash: Flash is a beautiful
medium for advanced and often engaging multimedia BUT, it should not be the
sole medium for your web site because the content within flash is not viewable
by a search engine. If you wish to use Flash then we recommend interspersing
it throughout a web site much like images are. This way you can include the
same impressive interaction capabilities and you can still write your content
in html; the sole medium that search engines can index. The same rule applies
to images; if you want your text to be found and indexed by the search engines
then do not include it within a graphic.
- Note: Image ALT tags do the job somewhat by providing an
ALTernative copy of the text shown in the image, however, this is a poor substitution
for true visible text.
- Provide Alternative Navigation Options: Most sites employ
a graphical navigation method which provides a very attractive and often functional
method of navigating a web site. By ALT tagging each of the menu buttons with
a topical summary of the destination page, graphical menus can even be effective
for search engines. There are, however, a couple of alternative navigational
items that we at StepForth recommend; a mirrored text menu at the bottom of
the page and a text link to a sitemap located somewhere within every page.
- The reason behind the text menu becomes clearer when you understand that
hyperlinked text is more credible than a linked graphic. This is because the
text within the link can be read and, as with any properly designed navigation,
the menu's text link defines the topic of the destined page. Also, since this
text is visible to visitors (unlike less visible ALT tags) there is less likelihood
that you are trying to fool the search engines. This adds further credibility
to the overall topic of the destined page which, in combination with the correctly
written content, creates an even better atmosphere for top placements.
- The sitemap is useful because of a certain well-known characteristic of
search engines; they often take a long time to index pages that are located
deep within a web site. So by creating a sitemap (preferably with text links)
that is accessible from any page, you provide the search engines with a direct
route to every page within your site. Not only do you facilitate a faster
crawl of your web site but you provide the search engines with more text links
which may further increase the credibility of your content.
In Summary:
Now that you know what it takes to create content that the search engines will
love, you are one major step closer to improving your search engine placements.
Once you have a web site that meets the many qualities that were listed in this
article, turn your attention to the proper optimization of your pages. If you
would like some pointers please see my 10 Minute Search Engine Optimization
tutorial which will walk you through the basics of the process.
By implementing my suggestions from this article and the 10 minute optimization
you will have a much better chance of achieving better placements simply because
they are designed to work with, and increase the value of search engine results.
You can't lose if you add value; the search engines will love you!
Copyright © by Web Designs | Professional Web Designers | Web Hosting |Search Engine Optimization All Right Reserved.
