Greetings, everyone out there in online content world.
OK. I promise to use the expression “Content is King” only once throughout this entire article. It’s an increasingly clichéd term that’s even driving content writers a bit potty, although they make their living this way and perk up no end whenever anyone mentions it.
However, you’ve got to get with the programme if you want to have a website that works for you. What I mean by “works”? Well, a website generating good quality enquiries that you convert into customers is a thing of beauty and I think that it takes a degree of knowledge, some money (maybe, OK probably, OK yes definitely) and lots of regular input and upkeep.
Being found and indexed on the internet used to be easy. You could stuff your site with keywords, buy create lots of cheap and nasty links to other sites and generally get up to all sorts of webby-style shenanigans that got you higher up the rankings than your competition.
No longer. Google now uses over 200 different algorithms to rank websites. Nobody knows exactly what they are because they don’t tell us – OK, they tell us some of them but not all, as they like to divide and conquer a bit, but here’s the current low-down on how to do it right:
Get your site developed by a professional if you can. You may want to speak to Richard Russell on 07403 202 601, he really knows his stuff. Just as natural language follows certain grammatical rules, websites are also built using certain languages which need to follow similar legitimate structures. Try putting it through www.validator3.org (an independent assessor of websites) to check for “good semantic mark up”. The fewer errors, the more Google approves. Fact.
Make sure that your images have your keywords on them (alt text).
Then (and this is where Content starts to become important)…
Make sure that you’ve done your research on the words people use to find your services.
Try to include your keywords and your location into your URL. Trust me on this one.
Use good header text (usually the title of an article at the top of your page); this so-called H1 text is seized on by Google who use it to determine what your page is all about and they’ll index the page accordingly.
Put your target keywords for each page into your page title and remember to keep it short. Each title needs to be relevant to its subject with no more than 70 characters. With me so far?
Write your content. Each page needs to contain between 300-500 words and must be:
Original
Relevant to its subject.
Well written, with excellent grammar, correct word order and no spelling errors
Regularly updated
Created in such a way to speak to your target audience
Leading the user to contact you through subtle Calls to Action
Make sure that publish articles on a blog ideally every two weeks. A well written blog should be part of your SEO strategy it’s new, original content and yes, you’ve guessed it, Google really likes it!
Search engines send out spidery crawly things on reconnaissance missions every few weeks to find legitimate websites, ie those which support good quality businesses and yes, great NEW content means more or less everything.
Copy content from another site or write it badly and like a plane passing over your frantically waved flag on a desert island, search engines won’t see you.
All a bit too much? You could ask a professional team of people to do all this for you. Give me a call to find out more. I’m not perfect, but I sure am a perfectionist.
Susan Beckingham
Sussex Copywriting Services
www.sussexcopywriter.co.uk
m: 07816 684 756
