Content Is King.

One of the most important parts of any website is the text on your page, this is often overlooked. This is an essential aspect of search engine optimisation. Just like a visitor to your site would read the text on a web page, the search engines do this too. When the search engines visit your site they are looking for your keyword phrases which should be in your keyword meta tag. Sounds complicated but hopefully we can give you some tips to help you on your way to internet success.

Below are some helpful tips to improve the content on your website:

1. We recommend that each web page should have at least 150 words of text on it. There are some cases where this may be difficult, but the search engines really like it so you should do your best to increase the amount of text where you can.

2. The text on your web page should include your most important keyword phrases, but should always remain logical and readable.

3. Always use the phrases that you have used in your other tags (i.e metas, alt, headings, titles, etc.) during the optimisation.

4. Use your most important keyword phrases about 4-8 times per 100 words.

Things that search engines do not like:

1. Sites that use frames in the design.
2. Sites that use dynamic URLs.
3. Sites that use flash.
4. Sites that use image maps for navigation.

Coming soon tips to help you improve the title tag, description and keywords of your website.

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10. Websites with nothing on the home page to identify itself.

You've seen them. Nice graphics, artistic, elegant looking home pages with no information. You click on every link, but you still don't know what the company does.

9. Flashy, sparkly, swirling intro pages.

You click on a link, expecting to get someone's home page with the information you're after. What you get is a page with pictures flashing or blinking or swirling around. It does this for several seconds, or longer if you're not lucky.

8. Music, or any other sound, that starts up when you click on the home page.

It is often off putting when a website plays music that is not your cup of tea. This often leads to the potential viewer clicking back to their original search immediately without looking at your website. If it is essential to your site make sure you give the user the option to turn it off.

7. Excessive drop down menus.

Drop down menus have their place when you have an option of 50 cities or 100 countries, but I think they should be avoided when there are only a few menu options.

6. Too many moving parts.

Too many moving graphics on every page make it hard to read the content. A little animation is interesting and artistic - too much just takes away from the message you want to convey to the user.

5. Web page that is too long or too wide.

Long web pages are too hard to follow. These are the web sites where the first page goes on and on with no discernable structure.

Web pages with huge pictures are a problem, especially for Internet surfers on a dial-up connection. Pictures should be resized to no more than 50k-100k.

4. Totally invalid search results.

Invalid search results occur when website owners decide to use a keyword because they found out it is a popular keyword although it is irelevent. This is known as keyword spamming. If Google catches you keyword spamming they drop you from their 'lists'.

3. Websites that look messy with no structure.

Often unorganized, unfocused websites use about 15 different fonts, sizes, and colors, giving it the look like that of a ten year old.

Also you start thinking, somewhere on this website there must be something related to what I Googled to get there, but darned if I can find it!

2. Text size that is too small or too large.

Have you ever seen a web page where the text size is so large you have to scroll down to read 3 words? Does the author of that website think they will get their point across by shouting at the top of their lungs? It just means tedious scrolling whilst also trying to read the content.

Sometimes the text size is way too small. It must be wonderful to have such great eyesight that you can comfortably read letters the size of the year on a penny from 18 inches away. It's ridiculous to go to all the work of creating a website with great content, but it's too hard to read. I know sometimes you can change the text size in your browser, but sometimes you can't.

1. Content is hard to read because of text and/or background colors.

The purpose of having written content on your website is so people can read it, right? So why make it hard to read by having light pink text that you can barely see on a pink background.

The easiest to read is a very dark text on a very light background. Even white text on a black background is harder to read.

When you create a website or web page, avoid anything that wastes the reader's time or causes confusion. Too many fancy features slow down the loading speed. If you want people to read your content, make it easy to read. Your structure and design should be straightforward and organized. When you are building a web site, you need to consider what is best for the readers and they are more likely to stay on your website longer.

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