|
Marketing and helpful articles |
|
Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website |
Welcome to part four in this search engine positioning
series. Last week we discussed the importance of the structure of
your website and the best practices for creating an easily spidered
and easily read site. In part four we will discuss content
optimization.
This is perhaps the single most important aspect of ranking your
website highly on the search engines. While all of the factors
covered in this series will help get your website into the top
positions, it is your content that will sell your product or service
and it is your content that the search engines will be reading when
they take their “snapshot” of your site and determine where it
should be placed in relation to the other billions of pages on the
Internet.
Over this series we will cover the ten key aspects to a solid search
engine positioning campaign.
The Ten Steps We Will Go Through Are:
Keyword Selection (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/keywords.htm)
Content Creation (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/content.htm)
Site Structure (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/structure.htm)
Optimization
Internal Linking
Human Testing
Submissions
Link Building
Monitoring
The Extras
Step Four – Content Optimization
There are aspects of the optimization process that gain and lose
importance. Content optimization is no exception to this. Through
the many algorithm changes that take place each year, the weight
given to the content on your pages rises and falls. Currently
incoming links appear to supply greater advantage than well-written
and optimized content. So why are we taking an entire article in
this series to focus on the content optimization?
The goal for anyone following this series is to build and optimize a
website that will rank well on the major search engines and, more
difficult and far more important, hold those rankings through
changes in the search engine algorithms. While currently having a
bunch of incoming links from high PageRank sites will do well for
you on Google you must consider what will happen to your rankings
when the weight given to incoming links drops, or how your website
fares on search engines other than Google that don’t place the same
emphasis on incoming links.
While there are many characteristics of your content that are in the
algorithmic calculations, there are a few that consistently hold
relatively high priority and thus will be the focus of this article.
These are:
1. Heading Tags
2. Special Text (bold, colored, etc.)
3. Inline Text Links
4. Keyword Density
Heading Tags
The heading tag (for those who don’t already know) is code used to
specify to the visitor and to the search engines what the topic is
of your page and/or subsections of it. You have 6 predefined heading
tags to work with ranging from H1; to H6;.
By default these tags appear larger than standard text in a browser
and are bold. These aspects can be adjusted using the font tags or
by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Due to their abuse by unethical webmasters and SEO’s, the weight
given to heading tags is not what it could be however the content
between these tags is given increased weight over standard text.
There are rules to follow with the use of heading tags that must be
adhered to. If you use heading tags irresponsibly you run the risk
of having your website penalized for spam even though the abuse may
be unintentional.
When using your heading tags try to follow these rules:
· Never use the same tag twice on a single page
· Try to be concise with your wording
· Use heading tags only when appropriate. If bold text will do then
go that route
· Don’t use CSS to mask heading tags
Never use the same tag twice on a single page. While the H1
tags holds the greatest weight of the entire heading tags, its
purpose is to act as the primary heading of the page. If you use it
twice you are obviously not using it to define the main topic of the
page. If you need to use another heading tag use the "H2" tag.
After that the "H3" tag and so on. Generally I try never to
use more than 2 heading tags on a page.
Try to be concise with your wording. If you have a 2 keyword phrase
that you are trying to target and you make a heading that is 10
words long then your keyword phrase only makes up about 20% of the
total verbiage. If you have a 4-word heading on the other hand you
would then have a 50% density and increased priority given to the
keyword phrase you are targeting.
Use heading tags only when appropriate. If bold text will do then go
that route. I have seen sites with heading tags all over the place.
If overused the weight of the tags themselves are reduced with
decreasing content and “priority” being given to different phrases
at various points in the content. If you have so much great content
that you feel you need to use many heading tags you should consider
dividing the content up into multiple pages, each with its own tag
and keyword target possibilities. For the most part, rather than
using additional heading tags, bolding the content will suffice. The
sizing will be kept the same as your usual text and it will stand
out to the reader as part of the text but with added importance.
Don’t use CSS to mask heading tags. This one just drives me nuts and
is unnecessary. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) serve many great
functions. They can be used to define how a site functions, looks
and feels however they can also be used to mislead search engines
and visitors alike. Each tags has a default look and feel. It is
fine to use CSS to adjust this somewhat to fit how you want your
site to look. What is not alright is to adjust the look and feel to
mislead search engines. It is a simple enough task to define in CSS
that your heading should appear as regular text. Some unethical
SEO’s will also then place their style sheet in a folder that is
hidden from the search engine spiders. This is secure enough until
your competitors look at the cached copy of your page (and they
undoubtedly will at some point) see that you have hidden heading
tags and report you to the search engines as spamming. It’s an
unnecessary risk that you don’t need to take. Use your headings
properly and you’ll do just fine.
Special Text
Special text (as it is used here) is any content on your page that
is set to stand out from the rest. This includes bold, underlined,
colored, highlighted, sizing and italic. This text is given weight
higher than standard content and rightfully so. Bold text, for
example, is generally used to define sub-headings (see above), or to
pull content out on a page to insure the visitor reads it. The same
can be said for the other “special text” definitions.
Search engines have thus been programmed to read this as more
important than the rest of the content and will give it increased
weight. For example, on our homepage we begin the content with
“Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning …” and have chosen to bold this
text. This serves two purposes. The first is to draw the eye to
these words and further reinforce the “brand”. The second purpose
(and it should always be the second) is to add weight to the “Search
Engine Positioning” portion of the name. It effectively does both.
Reread your content and, if appropriate for BOTH visitors and search
engines, use special text when it will help draw the eye to
important information and also add weight to your keywords. This
does not mean that you should bold every instance of your targeted
keywords nor does it mean that you should avoid using special text
when it does not involve your keywords. Common sense and a
reasonable grasp of sales and marketing techniques should be your
guide in establishing what should and should not be drawn out with
“special text”.
Inline Text Links
Inline text links are links added right into text in the verbiage of
your content. For example, in this article series I may make
reference to past articles in the series. Were I to refer to the
article on keyword selection rather than simple making a simple
reference to it as I just have it might be better to write it as,
“Were I to refer to the article on keyword selection rather …” (this
instance of "keyword selection" is mean to be an inline
link to http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/keywords.htm
however limitations in the article submission process do not make
this possible)
Like special text this serves two purposes. The first is to give the
reader a quick and easy way to find the find the information you are
referring to. The second purpose of this technique is to give added
weight to this phrase for the page on which the link is located and
also to give weight to the target page.
While this point is debatable, there is a relatively commonly held
belief that inline text links are given more weight that a text link
which stands alone. If we were to think like a search engine this
makes sense. If the link occurs within the content area then chances
are it is highly relevant to the content itself and the link should
be counted with more strength than a link placed in a footer simply
to get a spider through the site.
Link “special text” this should only be employed if it helps the
visitor navigate your site. An additional benefit to inline text
links is that you can help direct your visitors to the pages you
want them on. Rather than simply relying on visitors to use your
navigation bar as you are hoping they will, with inline text links
you can link to the internal pages you are hoping they will get to
such as your services page, or product details.
Keyword Density
For those of you who have never heard the term “keyword density”
before, it is the percentage of your total content that is made up
of your targeted keywords. There is much debate in forums, SEO chat
rooms and the like as to what the “optimal” keyword density might
be. Estimates seem to range from 3% to 10%.
While I would be the first to admit that logic dictate that indeed
there is an optimal keyword density. Knowing that search engines
operate on mathematical formulas implies that this aspect of your
website must have some magic number associated with it that will
give your content the greatest chance of success.
With this in mind there are three points that you should consider:
1. You do not work for Google or Yahoo! or any of the other major
search engines (and if you do you’re not the target audience of this
article). You will never know 100% what this “magic number” is.
2. Even if you did know what the optimal keyword density was today,
would you still know it after the next update? Like other aspects of
the search engine algorithm, optimal keyword densities change. You
will be chasing smoke if you try to constantly have the optimal
density and chances are you will hinder your efforts more than help
by constantly changing the densities of your site.
3. The optimal keyword density for one search engine is not the same
as it is for another. Chasing the density of one may very well ruin
your efforts on another.
So what can you do? Your best bet is to simple place your targeted
keyword phrase in your content as often as possible while keeping
the content easily readable by a live visitor. Your goal here is not
to sell to search engines, it is to sell to people. I have seen
sites that have gone so overboard in increasing their keyword
density that the content itself reads horribly. If you are simply
aware of the phrase that you are targeting while you write your
content then chances are you will attain a keyword density somewhere
between 3 and 5%. Stay in this range and, provided that the other
aspects of the optimization process are in place, you will rank well
across many of the search engines.
Also remember when you’re looking over your page that when you’re
reading it the targeted phrase may seem to stand out as it’s used
more than any other phrase on the page and may even seem like it’s a
bit too much. Unless you’ve obviously overdone it (approached the
10% rather than 5% end of the spectrum) it’s alright for this phrase
to stand out. This is the phrase that the searcher was searching
for. When they see it on the page it will be a reminder to them what
they are looking for an seeing it a few times will reinforce that
you can help them find the information they need to make the right
decision.
Final Notes
In an effort to increase keyword densities, unethical webmasters
will often use tactics such as hidden text, extremely small font
sizes, and other tactics that basically hide text from a live
visitor that they are providing to a search engines. Take this
advice, write quality content, word it well and pay close attention
to your phrasing and you will do well. Use unethical tactics and
your website may rank well in the short term but once one of your
competitors realizes what you’re doing you will be reported and your
website may very well get penalized. Additionally, if a visitor
realizes that you’re simply “tricking” the search engines they may
very well decide that you are not the type of company they want to
deal with; one that isn’t concerned with integrity but rather one
that will use any trick to try to get at their money. Is this the
message you want to send?
Next Week
Next week in part five of our "Ten Steps To an Optimized Website"
series we will be covering internal links strategies and best
practices. This will cover everything from image links and scripts
to inline and basic text links.
website+url: http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/ |
|
|
|
Suggested research Terms : Personal Finance
Home Mortgage, Loan, Refinance, Debt Consolidation, Bankruptcy,
Credit, Credit Reports, Credit Cards, Cash Advance, Home Loans,
Debt, Investing, Mortgages, Stocks, Loan, Financial |
|
 |
|
Suggested Resources |
|
|
|
|
|
