When first implementing a search engine optimization campaign, there are lots of things to think about. Who are you targeting? Who is your competition? What kind of conversions are you looking for? The answers to all of these questions will help build what is ultimately the most important part of your website, its content.
The content of a website is really anything located on its pages such as text, pictures, graphics, and other forms of multimedia. If your website includes advertising, that’s considered to be content as well. The content is what provides web users with information. Therefore, it needs to be relevant, interesting, and engaging. The visitor to your site needs to get something out of the site. If they aren’t entertained, learning something, or finding a product or service that they need they will likely take their eyes, and their business, elsewhere. There are so many websites that exist, many of which probably offer something similar to what you do, which is why it is important to stand out from the crowd. The only way to do this is to have high quality content when it comes to marketing yourself online.
Web content and SEO go hand in hand. One doesn’t work without the other, and vice versa. A website with good content that isn’t properly optimized will have a hard time getting noticed and all of the optimization strategies in the world won’t help a site that doesn’t have good content get conversions.
The first step to developing web content is to decide what content would be best for your business needs and goals. You should have a well thought out content development plan. Text is obviously the most important element. Choose your words carefully to be persuasive and sell, since that is the goal of any website. However, a text only site is boring. Even the most mundane, everyday product or service shouldn’t have a boring website. To make your website more attractive, incorporate some graphics (pictures, video, etc.). Remember, graphics can affect your page load time so don’t include too many, and make sure that the ones that you do include are relevant. The content should be created with your target audience in mind. What do they want to get from your site?
Next, once you are sure that the content is of good quality and relevant to your customers needs, optimize it. To ensure that the content gets noticed, it needs to be search engine friendly. Do keyword research and strategically implement the chosen targeted keywords into the content that was already created where they may fit. The search robots will more accurately index and rank your page if they understand what it’s about and what its purpose is. However, don’t make your text too keyword-heavy. This can look like spam to the search engines and also doesn’t provide a good user experience for the people that are reading it. It’s also important to include meta tags for any graphic that you use. The search engine robots can’t “read” an image or video, so the meta tag explains to them what it is.
Content development for SEO is a process. It takes time to get it right and maintain a balance of pleasing your visitors and pleasing the search engines. However, with some time and effort it can be done and will be worth it.
About the Author:
Brick Marketing is a Boston, MA based company that offers SEO consulting and training services.
This can look like spam to the search engines and also doesn’t provide a good user experience for the people that are reading it. It’s also important to include meta tags for any graphic that you use. The search engine robots can’t “read” an image or video, so the meta tag explains to them what it is.