Content Optimization

Optimizing Website Content

Graphics, color schemes and layout are there for the benefit of your visitors but are insignificant to the search engines. It is the things you say (i.e. keywords) and the way that you say them that matter.

Two areas of a website where keywords play a part are in your meta tags and content.

Meta Tags

There are only two "Meta Tags" that you need to consider when developing a webpage. They appear in your source code as;

• <meta name="description"> - This should be a short description of the content of the webpage. Be sure to use your primary keywords when composing your description but don't over do it. One or two sentences that are written clearly and to the point will do.

• <meta name="keywords"> - Your input here is exactly what the name implies. A list of keywords that provide an outline of your webpage content, used by search engines, to rank your position in search results.

Don't think that stuffing a lot of keywords into this tag will help position you better in the search engine rankings. Multiple occurrences of words will look like spam to the search engine spiders and may actually hurt your chances for a top spot in the search results.

An effective use of the "keyword meta tag" is to list the most important keywords on the webpage from top to bottom. Keep them simple and exactly as they appear in your content.

Once you have nailed down your content then utilize the meta tags keywords, description and title. Use your keywords when naming your pages and also for paragraph headings. Not all search engines operate exactly the same. But, if you follow the optimization tips provided here you will do just fine on most of them.

Keyword Phrases and Internet Searches

Keywords and Webpage Content

Keyword Placement

Links - You have probably heard of something called "anchor text". It means that any hyperlinks that you have on your webpage should be worded the same as the link to which you are jumping. For example; if you link to a page on your website titled "sitemap" be sure to type the link from your page exactly as it is in the title of the page you are linking to (i.e. sitemap). Search engines give this type of link a high priority when crawling your site so use your keywords in your anchor text as much as possible.

Headings - The proper use of headings (i.e. H1, H2, H3> can be a spotlight for your keywords. As you move through the content of your page be sure to provide an outline of the text by using headings to break down the main points of your copy. When doing this be sure to include your keywords.

Search engines analyse the whole of a web page to determine which keywords are relevant but the text within certain areas of a page are given more weight. The areas below are listed in a rough order of importance, but remember no one knows exactly how search engines rank pages.

• The title meta tag.
• The content on the page (within p tags).
• The anchor text of internal links.
• The anchor text of external links.
• The description meta tag.
• The alt tags of images.
• The H1 tag (and other heading tags).
• The filenames of pages.
• The filenames of images.
• The title tags of links.

Keyword Density

But, if you try to repeat them too often it will be considered spamming by the search engines and will penalize your positioning in the search results.

The best rule of thumb that I know of is to have your keywords appear at the top of the page content, somewhere in the middle of the page and in the last paragraph.