Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 4a: Site
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
- Content Creation
- Site Structure
- 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:
- Heading Tags
- Special
Text (bold, colored, etc.)
- Inline Text Links
-
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.
Next article continues with "special text".
