Content is the key!
If websites had official rules for success, the first would be: On the internet your content is the key to your every wish! There is simply nothing else that will improve your search engine rankings more than the content of your website.
Search engines are designed to display the best results to those searching. If someone searches for mobile phones (Just an example) the search engine scans its internal index to find what it thinks is the best site in relation to your search.
There are several factors to this such as the popularity of the website, how many other websites link to you and most of all if the content on your website matches what is being searching for.
When you think of what criteria you want your website to be found on during searching and you think of (Another example) 'computer games' If your website does not contain anything more than a few words about computer games, you can forget a high search engine ranking. Simply mentioning it a couple of times will not significantly raise your rank.
The way the search engines work is to visit your page and then they regard your website as text only. Images aren't taken into account. If you imagine what's left once the graphics dissapear then it's only the text that you have written.
An example of good content
As an example, imagine you want to appear high in searches for the keywords 'digital photography camera shop', we would need to ensure our page has a keyword density of around 10-15% so that means that around 15% of all the words on this page should be keywords.
Be careful however not to just fill your pages with keywords. If more than 15% of all the content on a page is keywords then your page will have a negative effect and its page rank within the search engines may fall. They will assume you are trying to cheat them.
A poor example would be having a page that reads: "We sell digital cameras and other items of photography equipment at Magic Cameras." It would be much better written as...
"At Magic Cameras Photography Shop, we stock a range of digital cameras and digital photography accessories. Our trained photography experts will help you choose your perfect camera whether you are looking for a compact camera or digital SLR camera. For your increasing photography needs, we have an ever expanding range of accessories in our shop as well so whether you are new to digital photography or have enjoyed photography for many years, Magic Camera's Digital Photography Shop will have something for the snappers!"
Looking at the example above, we now have a lot more keywords in this text which means its much better for the search engines, and its also much better for customers as they have more information about the services provided. This is only an example and you could easily write double the content shown.
What should I write?
Although it can be hard to elaborate about some sections or products, it really is worth the effort as you will see the return through your search engine rankings. Nothing comes close to content for giving you good search engine rankings.
Any other method for cheating the search engines will eventually be found out. Keyword stuffing, creating other keyword filled websites linking to your own website, spamming directories.. they are all cheating and once caught you can find yourself dissapearing totally from the search engines which is suicide on the internet.
Search Google for one of your products, services or one of the search terms that you want to appear on and see what comes up. View the first result and look at their descriptions and content. You can pretty much guarantee that they will be greatly worded descriptions with plenty of content. Your website's content needs to be better than these if you are to ever overtake them in the rankings.
So always remember when writing content, Content is the key! Contact me if you are having issues with writing the content of your website and I'll work with you to ensure that you have strongly worded content in order to help you rise higher on the search engines.
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This blog is written by Paul Nimmo, a freelance web designer and photographer based in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.
You can find out more about my design & photography services by clicking here.
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