It is important to learn how to write good, informational content when setting up web pages if you want your site to rank well with the major search engines. Content as it applies to web sites is defined at the textual information found on a web page.
One issue that is frequently overlooked when designing a web site is the fact that search engine spiders do not really care who you are or what you do. They do not care how large your company is or how much revenue it generates. A search engine’s mission is to provide useful information to their users. If they fail in their mission, they will lose market share, and ultimately that means a loss in advertising revenue for the search engine. Everything eventually comes down to dollars, even for a free service, such as a search engine.
An important aspect of search engine optimization is the targeting of the best keyword phrases that represent a site or a business, and then building the site’s content around the set of keywords. The keyword research should always come first, because if the wrong set of keyword phrases is selected, or the site is not properly focused on any particular keyword phrases, the site will not rank well for a broad range of search phrases. It generally takes 10 or more pages of good content to get a search engine’s attention. Small sites with one or two pages rarely rank well.
What is Good Content?
The most important aspect of good content is that is should be unique. If content is copied from other web sites or product descriptions are used from manufacturers’ sites, you risk triggering the duplicate content filters used by all the major search engines. Search engines do not want to display 10 pages with the same content when a user performs a search, so they actively weed out duplicate content pages and reduce the ability for those pages to rank well. They want to give users choices, not the same information multiple times.
Always write content for your users first, but keep search engines in mind while doing so. Make sure that the first paragraph or two is compelling. If it is not, users will probably not read the rest of the page. You do not need to stuff a page full of keywords. Excessive use of keywords can trigger a keyword stuffing penalty. Just make sure that you cover the primary keyword theme phrases once or twice in the text. It help to use variations of a keyword, such as singular and plural forms of the words.
Content needs to be focused on keyword themes for phrases that people use in searches. Focus on providing answers and solutions. Most users are looking for information, answers or solutions when they perform a search. Keep that in mind as you write. You do not have to write a lot of content. Generally, 250 to 500 words of good, informational content is all that you need. Google sometimes prefers slightly more. Just stay focused on your topic and do not load the content full of fluff or unnecessary sentences.
Another important aspect of SEO is the need to attract links to web pages. A link to a web page is considered to be a popularity vote for the page. All the major search engines keep track of every link that they find that leads to each web page. Content that is useful or interesting attracts links naturally. That is ideally what you want to see. It is much easier to attract links naturally than to find ways to build links to a site artificially. The secret to attracting links is the quality of the content.
Not everyone is a wordsmith or a copywriter. If you do not feel that you are a good writer or you just do not have the time, consider hiring a professional copywriter who understands how to work with search engines. A good web copywriter knows how to attract both users and search engines.