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Visitors and search engines alike just love websites that are rich in useful and interesting content, but just having tons of content on your website is not enough.
All of your content should be relevant to a main topic with each page or section of the website having a specific theme
(This applies to any resource or links pages the site may have as well). Each page should have its own topic and content should not stray to a different topic.
For example, if you're promoting a graphic design business and have a page on business card design, stay on the topic and don't make the mistake of using a page title like "Graphic Design company in Vancouver, Canada - business cards, logos, letterheads". "Business card design" should be be the most important key phrase for that page.
There are two main reasons why you should strive to keep your content relevant:
- So that your website's visitors have an easy time understanding the flow of your website. If they have to search through multiple pages to find the information they're looking for won't be visitors for very long.
The average web surfer Typically takes about three seconds to decide whether or not he/she wants to remain on a site. A clear idea of what your site is about should be apparent immediately, followed by easy navigation to other pages that display further topics in more detail.
- Search engine algorithms love relevant content! Keyword relevancy is a very important component of SEO. The more relevant your page's content is to a specific search term, the more likely the page is to come up near the top of search results for that search query.
Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes.
The more unrelated terms that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down the percentage of more important keywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire website, not just on certain pages.
Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any other pages that you may not think are important to have optimized for search engines such as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some websites have pages devoted to reciprocal links. There's nothing wrong with them unless you link out to a lot of unrelated websites.
The keywords that are used in the anchor text and surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if they are not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind that the links page counts as part of your website as a whole.
Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of a long list of irrelevant sites. This not only
keeps the search engines happy, but your visitors as well. And as mentioned before, both
your website's visitors and the search engines should be considered when creating
your website content.
About the Author:
John Metzler has been involved in web design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designs into one of the top SEO companies in the world.
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