The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: May 2006, Volume 5, Issue 5
Creating Website Content: Where’s The Beef?
by Jennifer Kenyon, Algorithmic Search Analyst, iProspect
Like the little, gray-haired old lady from Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef” commercial back in the ‘80s, search engines and search engine users are both looking for meat – meaty website content, that is. Search engines thrive on quality content, rich with keywords and links so that they can find and index pages of your website and rank them within their database of Web pages. Visitors to your website look to answer questions, solve problems or meet their needs on a given topic – a topic on which your website needs to provide content. If your website content is not written to fulfill the needs of both search engines and your site visitors, you’re not only missing the meat, but you’re also missing the boat.
The importance of well written Web page content can not be emphasized enough. Search engine spiders like clean, well organized copy containing keywords and phrases that relate to the subject of your Web page. This makes it easier for a spider to not only crawl your website, but recognize what each page is about. Similarly, providing your human website visitors with clean copy that focuses on the subject matter for which they are searching will immediately assure them they are in the right place and lead them to spend more time on your site. Having a well organized structure to your site also aids visitors in navigating to the content and “calls to action” that you want them to reach.
It Can Be Tough
Making your website content appeal to both spiders and visitors can be a daunting task. With the same copy you need to pay attention to the keywords you’re using in relation to the number of words on the page, the keyword-rich links within the content, the H1 tags and the flow of content, as well as providing valuable information that will grab and hold the interest of your visitors.
Here are some tips for optimizing your content for both search engines and your visitors:
Meat for Search Engines
Copy – Pick one topic per page and keep it simple. Write copy that clearly articulates and accurately describes your point. Optimal copy length is 200-400 words of visible content on each page.
Keywords – The best way to come up with targeted keywords is to first imagine which words your customers would use to find your information, services or products. Which terms would you query to find your information, services or products? Focus on one keyword per page and develop your content to support that keyword. The amount, frequency, and position of targeted keywords are also important. Repeat the primary keyword phrase 10-12 times throughout the page’s HTML source, including occurrences in the title, meta data and image ALT tag, body copy, and links on the page. This works out to 6-7 occurrences of the keyword phrase in the body copy. Also, make sure to keep the target keyword phrase intact. Breaking up the phrase or changing the order of the words within the phrase will make it less relevant to spiders.
Links – Spiders love them. Add your target keyword phrase to a couple of text links that lead to internal content on your website; it will help spiders traverse the site to find (and hopefully index) additional pages.
Design – Don’t hide good “meat” within graphics or image maps. Search engine spiders can’t read it and are much hungrier for static HTML text. Flash is also not recommended.
Meat for Visitors
Establish Points of Differentiation – Why would a customer want to buy from you rather than one of the many businesses like yours? Establishing points of differentiation helps your visitors become more informed buyers of the products or services you offer.
Satisfy Their Need to Know – Ask yourself, “what would I need to know if I were in the market for this product or service?” Help visitors see how your service could benefit them by adding a case study or an FAQ page.
Teach – Offer helpful tips and/or tutorials. Develop useful tools or write relevant and informational articles and publish them on your website. These techniques can help you be perceived as an authority in your field.
Make it Easy – What does your audience want to find? Do you have the right information and/or products listed so they can find what they are looking for? Is the information or products easy to find? Once a visitor has a comfortable and enjoyable experience on your website, chances are they’ll come back for more.
Refresh – Add new content or update existing content as often as you can. Spiders will appreciate this as much as visitors. Plus, once a visitor realizes you add new content frequently, there’s a better chance they’ll return to see what’s new.
Writing content that appeals to both humans and search engines doesn’t come naturally, but hopefully these tips will help focus on what’s needed to build a website that will satisfy the appetite of both, and leaving neither to ask, “Where’s the Beef?”
