So what makes for good content? Good content is HTML text, well written page titles and descriptions with solid, clean programming presented by way of well graphically designed content layout.
Good content is driven by the right "keywords" and "key phrases":
- Use keywords and phrases that encapsulate what your website is all about;
- Make sure that the keywords and phrases are consistent with what website visitors would use with the search engines and directories to locate your website.
Techniques you can use to help determine the best keywords and phrases.
These should be used when defining your website design as part of the overall marketing concepts that should be inherent in all websites preferably before building your website.
- First, make your own list of keywords (search words) and key phrases (search phrases)
- Search these keywords and key phrases to find your competitors
- If you have a Web site with a statistics package or Web analytics software check the keywords and key phrases that people are presently using to view your Web site.
- Make use of software tools that are available for providing suggested keywords based on current search engine usage patterns.
Utilising the above tools and techniques you should be able to determine a list of keywords and key phrases to use on your own website.
Now that you have a list of keywords and key phrases you start to build your website prioritising these keywords. Determine which is most important making sure that these keywords and key phrases are used appropriately in your page content, in web page file names, internal hyperlinks, etc.
Some general rules regarding keyword and key phrase usage:
- Limit your use of keywords
- Remember that your website's front page generally receives the most 'attention' by search engines.
- Use your keywords appropriately.
- Avoid the over-use of keywords and phrases on pages.
Remember that search engines love those websites that exhibit strong content that is relevant. This means that the content makes proper and appropriate use of keywords and phrases. When building a Web site’s structure / navigation and developing Web site content think about making your site's content friendly for both search engines and your website visitors who are reading and scanning your website.
