Web Page Content

The best time to start optimizing your website is when you are inthe planning stage. If possible, choose the keywords you want to optomize beforeyou design your site.

1. Try to achieve a word count between 300 and 750 words on each page. Shoot fora keyword density of between 2% and 3%. If you are optimizaing for a competitiveindustry and you are not high in the rankings then you can try pushing the densityhigher.
   
   
2. Do not optimize all your pages for the most popular keywords. This advice appliesmost for new sites. The search engines use link popularity as a key ranking factorand it takes a while to compete effectively with established sites. You are betteroff being on the first page of a less searched term than page 20 of a very popularkeyword phrase. Very few people make it past page 2 of the search results. Usea keword suggestion tool to find appropriatekewords.



3. If feasible, create separate pages for different types of informaton (e.g.themes, categories, product lines, products).



4. Use one or more header tags in your main page body and include your most importantkeyword phrases. Use header tags <H1> and <H2>. You can use CascadingStyle Sheets (CSS) to alter the appearance of your header tags so that you don'thave to change the look and feel of your site.
   
   
5. Use the different versions of your keywords, when possible. The search engineshave improved their use of word stemming. Word stemming describes taking thestem of a word and generating common variants of it. The search engines can findsearch results that include keywords that extend beyond what you searched for.
   
   Keyword: submission
   Possible stemming results: submit, submissions
   
   
6. Try to have your content be the first thing that appears to the search engines.Content at the top of the page is ranked higher. In some cases, adding blanktable rows can prevent your menus from appearing first.


7. Avoid duplicate content between your own site and others. Google is quite efficientat identifying duplicate content. Both versions of the content will not appearnear the top of the search results.