davidcdalton.com logo

David C. Dalton

Web Application & Database Development, Responsive Website Design, Programming & SEO Services

They say content is king on the internet and they would be right, as long as the content is properly formatted and uses the keywords you want to get indexed on within it. Fresh, original content that is well written and focuses on the topics (keywords) your potential users are looking for seems a simple idea but you would be amazed how often this "No Duh" element gets over looked.

What’s Organic Search Engine Optimization 4 - Content is King!

So by this point you know the search engine spiders are looking for readable content and keywords. In honesty your potential users are looking for the same thing, well at least the content that is. Content (information) is what has driven the web since its initial conception and it isn’t going to change anytime soon. What I find quite interesting is that most site owners find well written, descriptive content a secondary thought. I’ve actually worked with people who find creating their content a pain worse than death and will do just about anything to get out of doing it. When I told one client the pages needed more content (he had given me four sentences per page) he literally told me "Can’t you just make the text bigger to fill the page".

If you rate writing content for your site somewhere between and all day root canal and cleaning the toilet might I recommend hiring a professional copy writer? No matter how you get it done your content has to be descriptive, professional, easy to read for your users and have just the right amount of keywords. There are several factors you need to consider with your content:

  • Does it accurately describe your product or services to your users?
  • Does it have your primary keywords in the heading and the content body several times?
  • Does the content read "naturally" (in other words not so loaded with keywords you seem to be stuttering)
  • Does the article use HTML <strong> tags to emphasize important words

There really is no giant trick to writing content. All you have to do is think about what you want to see when you are trying to find something on the internet. Just enough content to give the customer what they want, but not enough to bore them to death. Sprinkled within this information you should make sure your keywords show up. The first instance of your keyword should be as close to the beginning of the content as possible and then scattered through the rest.

SEO people argue about how often the keywords should show constantly but a good base amount is about 3-5% of the word count. Again it all depends on what the content is about. Personally I feel if I got the keywords in 5 or 6 times in a 10 paragraph page I’m doing fine.

Spelling, Spelling, Spelling!

One thing that makes me crazy (and I do all the time) is forget to spell check a page only to get indexed in the search engines for a misspelling! Many years ago I had the number one position for e-commence, nice except I meant it to be e-commerce. To make matters worse even after I found the mistake and corrected it I couldn’t get rid of that stupid misspelled listing! Please folks, take the time to spell check your articles and content!

Fresh Content as often as possible

Another "deadly sin" many people commit with their sites is to put up some great content and never change, update or add to it. If your site sits long enough with the same content the spiders will slow down the intervals between crawls. If your content sits too long they just might forget you exist completely. Do yourself a big favor and try to add or update your content as often as possible. Good rule of thumb is at least one new article or page per month, minimum. Most SEO people will tell you to add a new article once a week and I do agree with them. Unfortunately that isn’t always possible. But you have to remember that search engines love fresh new original content, that’s one giant reason why blogs usually get such great rankings. Try and update as often as possible!

Again I am no professional copy writer. Yes, I seem to be able to write articles but trust me I get the same brain block when I have to write normal content as the next person. My suggestion is seek professional help! Not only will it help out your search engine rankings it will almost always help you conversion rate!

Part Five, SEO No Nos