Keeping Your Website's Content Relevant
Continuing with the topic of Search Engine Algorithm. Last article explained the need to have relevant content for your website including having links that have contents relevant to your website. The article below by John Metzler explains how you can achieve this process and why it is necessary for High Search Engine Page Ranking. I have made bold some words in this article to make sure these key elements are not missed.
Keeping Your Website's Content Relevant
By John Metzler
Visitors and search engines love content-rich web sites, but just having a lot of content on your web site is not enough. It all has to be relevant to a main topic with each page or section of the web site having a specific theme (And yes, this includes any resource or links pages the site may have). Each page should have its own topic and content should not stray to a different topic.
If you are promoting your graphic design business and have a page on business card design, stay on the topic and refrain from using a page title such as "Graphic Design company in Vancouver, Canada - business cards, logos, letterheads". Your want the business card design to be the most important key phrase.
There are two main reasons for content relevancy. The first is so that visitors have an easy time understanding the flow of your web site. Visitors who have to search through multiple pages to find the information they're looking for won't be visitors much longer. The average web site user takes about three seconds to decide whether or not stay on a site. A clear idea of what your site is about should be apparent immediately, followed by easy navigation to other pages that display further topics in more detail.
The second reason for keeping content relevant throughout your web site is for search engine algorithms. Keyword relevancy is an important part of search engine optimization. The more relevant your web site's content is for a specific term, the more likely the site is to show up near the top of search results for the term.
Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes. The more unrelated terms that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down the percentage of more important keywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire web site, not just on certain pages.
Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any other pages that you may not think are important to have optimized for search engines such as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some web sites have pages devoted to reciprocal links. There's nothing wrong with them unless you link out to a lot of unrelated web sites. The keywords that are used in the anchor text and surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if they are not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind that the links page counts as part of your web site as a whole.
Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of a long list of irrelevant sites. This not only appeases search engines but your visitors as well. And as mentioned before, both visitors and search engines should be kept in mind when creating web site content.
An expert at organic SEO, John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the President of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based SEO firm.
My notes:
Many of us are guilty of many if not all of the actions above. Before learning SEO I never considred optimizing my Contact Page, did you? What I did to start re-doing my website was to start making sure that the important sections (main entry pages, i.e. home page, category main pages, etc) were optimized for the content of each page. The home page I optimized by making sure that I had relevant "anchor text link" titles for each link whether it was within my domain or outbound leading to some other website. This also includes image comment tags. I also had to make sure that I didn't over saturate using just enough main keyword within each type of optimization tactic used.
This wasn't an easy feat but worth the effort. I did this type of technique for each of the important portal pages that were used as entry to my website. In my experience the homepage is by far the hardest to optimize. Why? Because it is the main hub of your domain, it has to contain most of your keyword specific target words.
How did I do in the Google Jagger? I lost a few ground in some of my chosen keywords, but with the optimization and making sure that I wasn't breaking any rules, the website is now doing well and listed again in Google taking number one in my keyword "Work at Home Business Mall".
Although Google is a very important Search Engine I must emphasize that there are other powerful and frequently used search engines as well and you should not create your website just for one particular search engine. The main thing to remember when creating or redeveloping your website for top Search Engine Page Ranking is to make sure that you follow these simple rules:
Keeping Your Website's Content Relevant
By John Metzler
Visitors and search engines love content-rich web sites, but just having a lot of content on your web site is not enough. It all has to be relevant to a main topic with each page or section of the web site having a specific theme (And yes, this includes any resource or links pages the site may have). Each page should have its own topic and content should not stray to a different topic.
If you are promoting your graphic design business and have a page on business card design, stay on the topic and refrain from using a page title such as "Graphic Design company in Vancouver, Canada - business cards, logos, letterheads". Your want the business card design to be the most important key phrase.
There are two main reasons for content relevancy. The first is so that visitors have an easy time understanding the flow of your web site. Visitors who have to search through multiple pages to find the information they're looking for won't be visitors much longer. The average web site user takes about three seconds to decide whether or not stay on a site. A clear idea of what your site is about should be apparent immediately, followed by easy navigation to other pages that display further topics in more detail.
The second reason for keeping content relevant throughout your web site is for search engine algorithms. Keyword relevancy is an important part of search engine optimization. The more relevant your web site's content is for a specific term, the more likely the site is to show up near the top of search results for the term.
Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes. The more unrelated terms that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down the percentage of more important keywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire web site, not just on certain pages.
Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any other pages that you may not think are important to have optimized for search engines such as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some web sites have pages devoted to reciprocal links. There's nothing wrong with them unless you link out to a lot of unrelated web sites. The keywords that are used in the anchor text and surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if they are not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind that the links page counts as part of your web site as a whole.
Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of a long list of irrelevant sites. This not only appeases search engines but your visitors as well. And as mentioned before, both visitors and search engines should be kept in mind when creating web site content.
An expert at organic SEO, John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the President of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based SEO firm.
My notes:
Many of us are guilty of many if not all of the actions above. Before learning SEO I never considred optimizing my Contact Page, did you? What I did to start re-doing my website was to start making sure that the important sections (main entry pages, i.e. home page, category main pages, etc) were optimized for the content of each page. The home page I optimized by making sure that I had relevant "anchor text link" titles for each link whether it was within my domain or outbound leading to some other website. This also includes image comment tags. I also had to make sure that I didn't over saturate using just enough main keyword within each type of optimization tactic used.
This wasn't an easy feat but worth the effort. I did this type of technique for each of the important portal pages that were used as entry to my website. In my experience the homepage is by far the hardest to optimize. Why? Because it is the main hub of your domain, it has to contain most of your keyword specific target words.
How did I do in the Google Jagger? I lost a few ground in some of my chosen keywords, but with the optimization and making sure that I wasn't breaking any rules, the website is now doing well and listed again in Google taking number one in my keyword "Work at Home Business Mall".
Although Google is a very important Search Engine I must emphasize that there are other powerful and frequently used search engines as well and you should not create your website just for one particular search engine. The main thing to remember when creating or redeveloping your website for top Search Engine Page Ranking is to make sure that you follow these simple rules:
- Figure out what your website is all about and tune in to a handful of topic specifc keywords to target. These targets will be your basis when you create links to other websites or considering a link exchange with another site. Remember, you can be a craft store providing relevant content with articles on making crafts, craft show links, craft related materials and products, etc . . . In other words, just because you are in the business of making handmade crafts does not mean you do not have other venues related to crafts that can be used to create information for your website visitors.
- Make sure that your Anchor Text is related to your keywords. If you are a craft store for instance the link text to your website should not be just the name of your store, it should include your main keywords. This can be done to specific sections of your website as well if exchanging links with relevant websites.
- Investigate the website you plan to link to or considering a link exchange with.
- Do not use Frames on your homepage or any major entry pages of your website, use SSI instead.
- Make sure that your site load time is within 5 seconds.
- Optimize your website as your building it and if you're in the process of redoing it, take one chunk or section at a time.
- Don't create your website just for Search Engines, remember your site is for potential customers not just search engines.
I hope this article was helpful for your future or present SEO attempts. My next post will be more about Search Engines but more specifically your Page Ranking.
posted by C. T. Morgan @ 7:20 AM
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