 The Importance of Content for SEO
by: SEO Factor
Often times we get so caught up in marketing our
site and making it aesthetically pleasing, we forget
one of, if not THE most important part of SEO.
Content. The search engines can not see pictures, so
the only way to tell them what your site is all
about is to provide that information to them via
text. But why is it so difficult to put text on our
sites?
During the creation of a site, we often care more
about how it looks than how it functions. Flash, in
my opinion, can be used to create some of the most
beautiful sites out there. We get so drawn into
making nice layouts with neat animations, we
completely neglect the fact that we are building a
site for the world, not just us.
The content on your site should actually be the
first thing you think of when optimizing it. You
need to convey to the search engines that your site
is worthy of ranking, and that you are here to offer
something to the masses. I often give this advice to
customers, and get a great deal of fearful feedback.
I hear a lot of "I don't even know what to write."
Well, your site is an extension of your
business/service/whatever, and as such you are
likely to be well versed in that area. But I think
people get caught up in the idea that the text is
going to be placed on the site, promoting the
attention to variables such as what font to use,
what color, how it will look, etc.
The best advice that I can give in reference to
thinking of text, is to close your site, use notepad
(not Word. This creates problems when deciding to
copy and paste), or a pen and paper (these do exist
you know), and just put your thoughts to reality.
Just write. Write about your business, yourself,
your products, the history of your company,
whatever. Just write. Before you know it, you will
have well over 800 words of cryptic information all
about your industry. As I write this, I am not
thinking about my blog or my site, but only what I
am trying to convey to you, the reader. Once you
have all that information, organize it. Make it mean
something, and make sense. Given enough thought, it
will not be too difficult to come up with at least
500 words, which is a good amount of text to be
placed on a website.
Once the content is on the site, you can obviously
tweak it here and there to make proper use of your
search terms (this will most likely happen anyway.
You are writing on or about the same subject as your
site, right?). And once that is done, you can then
figure out what the layout, spacing, font, and all
the other wonderful cosmetics the online world can
offer will be.
As with all things online, this is easier written
than done. But try this method out and see if it
helps. To me, writing is my very weakest point, and
this helps a great deal. Content is so very
important to search engine optimization, and should
be treated as such.
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