Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Content Strategies

Let’s talk unique web page content and SEO content strategy.  A year ago I would have said go and write yourself all the content your little heart desires and you will get a good ranking and be fine in regards to SEO.  But as mentioned in my Inbound Link Article , inbound links are now king with SEO when marketing within Google.

So, web page content is very important in not only the search engines eyes but also in the perception and eyes of your viewer.  The more unique web page content you have the more the visitors to your site will think of you as an expert in your field.  The search engines will also look at the unique content in somewhat of the same way, and they will give a good ranking to the page because they feel it’s pertinent to what the person who searched for the information is actually looking for.

So there are 2 parts to web page content and your SEO content strategy, well besides the fact it has to be well written. 

1. The first part is it must be unique: This means for example on any given webpage no more than 30% of the information on that page can be identical to another web page on the web.  There will always be some level of overlay but 30% is a good number to stay below.
2. The second part is it must be relevant: This means if the site is about tennis and the page is about tennis shoes you need to have content that pertains to tennis shoes on the page, yes that sounds obvious but you would be surprised at the number of sites we see that just don’t follow this rule well. 

So, how is relevancy defined within the search engines?  It’s a combination of the keywords in the Title Tag, URL String, and meta-tags and how densely they are within the content of the pages.  A good keyword density is around 3% and Google is very strict with this so do not over this percentage.  This number is derived by counting all the words on the page (which can be done in Word), taking the first keyword and figuring what percentage of the words that keyword makes up on the page.

3 Things not to do or you will get banned:

1. Don’t hide text on the page by making it the same color as the background to help with SEO, you will get banned.
2. Don’t stack a page full of keywords at the bottom to try and get your keyword density higher to help with SEO, you will get banned.
3. Don’t put a lot of text on a page so that the user has to scroll for more then a second to read it all. With the recent update in Google this gives you a penalty, and enough penalties, let me hear you say it “you will get banned”.  

PS: It usually takes around a year to get a site off the banned list with google.







Content Strategies

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CEO/Lead Designer Blue Wave Design Studio www.bluewavedesignstudio.com

Not to shoot holes in this advice bwds, as much of it is valuable (and I appreciate you offering it up), but I do have to point out that keyword density has been widely disproved as a basis for search engine ranking.  It would take a lot of esoteric discussion on algorithms and such, but if anyone`s interested in the underlying theory, this article does a great job of explaining it.

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chuck fuller

What strikes me about the whole topic, and I think it`s a good one, is the idea of "content." As a previously professional piano player, I have a strange sense of the surreal when I read or hear ads that promise someone they can "learn to play the guitar (or piano) in 10 easy lessons!"

Okay, so I want to write unique content (which we`ll stipulate means descriptive language of some sort). Is this something we can do with "How to write unique and relevant content in 10 easy lessons?" I`d have a hard time agreeing with that being true.

What makes someone a writer, versus their being a person who can form sentences in a particular language? A friend of mine once said that he looks for a distinction when someone says they`re a writer, versus their being an author. Interesting observation on his part.

A writer, as opposed to writing, implies a more highly developed skill of "some kind" involving language---this content we`re reading about. What IS that skill? WHY doesn`t everyone write interesting stuff? Who says it`s interesting, and how do we measure that interest?

Is it true that "anyone" can fill up their own Web pages with content of any kind, without even starting to examine it for unique and SEO qualities? From what I see on the Web, I`d have to say no, it`s not.

I`m with you Craig, I don`t think anyone can simply decide to write good and unique content.  There`s an interesting post from an SEO expert on this topic here - and he cites the following as one of the platitudes that he hates:

"Create quality content. Why do I hate it? If you don`t have much brand recognition higher quality content will lose out to average content. Most people never talk about the social aspects of the web when saying to create quality content."


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chuck fuller

Chuck, you`ve hit on one of my other big bugaboos...how people get so wrapped up in the technical process, they almost totally lose sight of the simple reality: What does this do?

Remember that Tom Hanks movie, "Big?" It`s about a 12-yearold boy who suddenly discovers himself in the body of an adult. He ends up as a consultant to a toy company. In a meeting, they hand him the latest "cool, wow, major-awesome" toy, designed for kids. He looks at it, and asks, "But...what does it do?"

Someone can be the most brilliantly technical pianist, but if they don`t play with some sort of emotion and feeling, so what? Liberace was a fantastic technician, but so what? B.B. King will be remembered by more people.

So too, we can take apart content on a Web site, examine it for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and typeface. We can examine the white space, color, background, shape, size, and flowing pathway. We can then put it all into a formula, and say, "That`s-a Nice-a Letters!" :-D

But is it interesting to read from a human bean`s perspective?

Great Thread...Thanks for posting.


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<A HREF="http://www.AuditAuctions.com">Get ISO Certified</A>

Interesting. I believe that we are leaving a big chunk out the ‘how to’ write a web page.

IMO it should first be written by a technician with total disregard for how a search engine will classify it, or how entertaining it is ‘Just the facts’ type thing. Then it should be reviewed and rewritten by somebody that can make that mass of information captivating to the reader. Only then should a SEO expert pick up what’s been done and work his magic, this should be followed by a graphics designer or an artist of some sort for aesthetic reasons. Once all of this is done, everybody that contributed to the page should check off on it ensuring his creation was not destroyed somewhere in the process.

Of course that would be a tad expensive to do for every single page, but if somebody is to create a page from scratch alone he/she should wear all those caps in that order before posting that page.

ElidS... that is similar to my process, except for the graphic design coming first in my situation. Since Graphic Design is one of my strong points, I created a mock version of my site. Place holder copy, images, and links. I have then written factual information about the actual product. I am now in the process of rewriting the content of every page. I hired a professional writer with good SEO writing experience. My next process will be to wrap up the final SEO techniques by hiring an SEO expert... unless, results from my previous actions provide the visitors I am hoping to get.

I have chose to put my business online and functioning even before each stage is completed because I have to start somewhere. I have show the public (but mostly my circle of business colleges) that I am serious about this business and have invested a lot of time and money to make it the best I can. I have also heard, that making slight edits to the web page can provide better rangings on the search engines because it appears your pages are actively being accessed and updated.

Our Magnolia Flower Branch will likely be updated this week with the new, SEO ready, emotional, soft call to action copy. The homepage will be rewritten next and then all the other pages to follow. (There is a method to the madness, and an internal business reason for updating one product page before the homepage.)

I hope to see more traffic soon. I know all the SEO posts I have been reading is really increasing my traffic. I measure traffic by using three different web analysis tools.

extremetracker
webalizer (part of the offerings from my host)
Google Analytics


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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

:-) Once again EliDS has succinctly laid down a really excellent set of points.

I went back and checked out the link Chuck posted, and wish there were more places like this. Well no, there ARE places like this! It`s just that they`re not bandied about as much as others. Chuck`s link takes us to a "myth-buster" site, with some real truth and analytic thought.

How many times do you get an email about some terrible new virus? But how many times do you go to the Symantec or MacAfee site to find out if it`s a hoax? :-D

People want to hold onto their illusions. One of the best comments I read, comes from a philosophic essay on Bullsh*t. The author, Harry G. Frankfurt, discusses that in today`s world we`re told we should all be experts on everything. We should keep up, know what`s happenin`, have the answers, act fast, act first, take advantage, and blah-blah-blah.

We`re told that UNLESS we act fast, we`re doomed. "This is a one-time offer," "not available for long," and so forth. Corporate employees are told they`ll be fired or laid off at any time unless they keep to the "leading edge." Stress, misery, panic, and fear abound.

The result is that we`re all learning how to be masters of Bullsh*t! And nominal, mediocre content writing is just so much bovine feces. It`s crap, made to look like something. Jargon serves the same purpose, and too many people believe that putting this jargon into a 10-word business slogan substitutes for actually saying something.

Richard is SO right, to advocate getting back to the basics! But "basics" doesn`t mean drawing with burnt sticks on a stone wall! It means asking the two big questions:

1. What`s REALLY going on here!?
2. What the hell am I trying to say?

There`s another thread going on about how to form an interesting community. Alright...what exactly does "interesting" mean? How many times have you lately heard someone casually say, "This is really unique! It`s the most unique thing I`ve seen lately!" Hmm? Isn`t "unique" a one-of-a-kind thing? So how does something become more or less one-of-a-kind?

What`s unique content? What`s "interesting" content? I was in a big supermarket last night and saw a new shopping cart. It`s designed for children so they can sit in an enclosed bottom part, watching TV. How do those kids learn the basics of shopping for FOOD!? They`re shoved into a box with vapid TV shows, never even seeing the real world around them.

What`s "interesting" to generations of children growing up with TV sound bytes, insipid sitcoms, and an almost total inability to read a book? After all, isn`t Web content reading? Of course!

Those Cliff notes we all grew up with were a great way to pretend we`d read works of literature to pass a test. Does that mean we should convert all works of literature in the Library of Congress to Cliff notes? Why not? If modern Web surfers can barely hold attention to more than 300 words on a page, what`s the point of having something longer?

:-D It comes back to what`s the meaning of the term "interesting."

CraigL... I thought your post was really interesting concidering I was "reading" the post by way of my Speech to Text software. I was listening to the post while preparing some documents and sending them to the printer. I am guilty of not reading web content even. 

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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words