Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 4: Content Optimization

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 (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/content.htm) Site Structure (Keyword Density For those of you who have never heard the term "keyword density" before, it is the percentage of your total content that is made up of your targeted keywords. There is much debate in forums, SEO chat rooms and the like as to what the "optimal" keyword density might be. Estimates seem to range from 3% to 10%. While I would be the first to admit that logic dictate that indeed there is an optimal keyword density. Knowing that search engines operate on mathematical formulas implies that this aspect of your website must have some magic number associated with it that will give your content the greatest chance of success. With this in mind there are three points that you should consider: You do not work for Google or Yahoo! or any of the other major search engines (and if you do you're not the target audience of this article). You will never know 100% what this "magic number" is. Even if you did know what the optimal keyword density was today, would you still know it after the next update? Like other aspects of the search engine algorithm, optimal keyword densities change. You will be chasing smoke if you try to constantly have the optimal density and chances are you will hinder your efforts more than help by constantly changing the densities of your site. The optimal keyword density for one search engine is not the same as it is for another. Chasing the density of one may very well ruin your efforts on another. So what can you do? Your best bet is to simple place your targeted keyword phrase in your content as often as possible while keeping the content easily readable by a live visitor. Your goal here is not to sell to search engines, it is to sell to people. I have seen sites that have gone so overboard in increasing their keyword density that the content itself reads horribly. If you are simply aware of the phrase that you are targeting while you write your content then chances are you will attain a keyword density somewhere between 3 and 5%. Stay in this range and, provided that the other aspects of the optimization process are in place, you will rank well across many of the search engines. Also remember when you're looking over your page that when you're reading it the targeted phrase may seem to stand out as it's used more than any other phrase on the page and may even seem like it's a bit too much. Unless you've obviously overdone it (approached the 10% rather than 5% end of the spectrum) it's alright for this phrase to stand out. This is the phrase that the searcher was searching for. When they see it on the page it will be a reminder to them what they are looking for an seeing it a few times will reinforce that you can help them find the information they need to make the right decision. Final Notes In an effort to increase keyword densities, unethical webmasters will often use tactics such as hidden text, extremely small font sizes, and other tactics that basically hide text from a live visitor that they are providing to a search engines. Take this advice, write quality content, word it well and pay close attention to your phrasing and you will do well. Use unethical tactics and your website may rank well in the short term but once one of your competitors realizes what you're doing you will be reported and your website may very well get penalized. Additionally, if a visitor realizes that you're simply "tricking" the search engines they may very well decide that you are not the type of company they want to deal with; one that isn't concerned with integrity but rather one that will use any trick to try to get at their money. Is this the message you want to send? Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc. One of the few SEO & web design review and