SEO: Website content optimisation tips

Thu, 13th May, 2010 - Posted by Tamara Baranova

Guest post by Nichola Stott, the media flow

In this fourth part of a series guide to search engine optimisation, we’re going to look at SEO considerations for content. It is extremely important that you are familiar with keyword research, and I would recommend reading part 3 of this series (Keyword Research) to help provide a solid foundation.

Once you have identified your keywords you then need to implement them in the correct manner on your site, including in the user-facing content, and also the source code, or CMS for your site, (in the meta- data, header and other appropriate tags). Today we’re going to focus on content…

It is important to ensure that the keywords you have identified feature in your content. I mean… why wouldn’t they? Having your keywords in your content is the most natural thing to do, providing you got the keyword research stage correct. Although this will contribute towards ranking your pages for the terms you have identified; most importantly this provides a consistent user journey and helps to assure visitors that your page is indeed relevant for the query they have initiated.

Some SEO practitioners may advise you to consider and optimise your keyword density, (which is the number of times a keyword may be used in any given piece of content, expressed as a percentage of total content). Whilst having your keywords in your content is important, I would advise against this approach. Come on now – if all we had to do was drop your keywords a magic number of times then the web would be full of dull pages of auto-written crap. It’s not the 90’s anymore!

I strongly urge you not to obsess about an optimum density, and instead focus on writing relevant and attractive content for your users.

  • Keep content relevant and snappy as the web is not the best medium for reading long pieces of wordy content
  • Do consider your keywords and make sure your main keywords are contained a handful of times in a relevant and meaningful way
  • Do not obsess about keyword density or you risk your content reading badly to humans (who are your customers after all.)

    • More on debunking the keyword density myth (amongst others)!

    Also check out this excellent piece on “promotional vs informative” copywriting, from web copywriting expert Angie Nikoleychuk.

    About the author: Nichola Stott is a highly regarded search and social media professional with over a decade of experience in online communications. Nichola is director and co-founder of theMediaFlow, a search and social media agency; and is a regular conference speaker and contributor to online industry media including Econsultancy, SEO Chicks and State of Search. You can contact Nichola on linkedin  or twitter.

    Related Posts:

    Category : Online marketing tips