• Content Tips

How to Create Search Engine-Friendly Content

The search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo! Search, Live Search) aim to help people find the web pages that provide the most up-to-date, useful and helpful information about a product or service. Search engines cannot 'read' images and animations, so they need informative text. Offer as much good quality text information as you can, and once your site goes live, update it often.

Apart from making it easier for customers and the search engines to understand what you do, the other benefit of providing lots of up-to-date, helpful text information on your site is that other website owners are more likely to link to your pages. The search engines will reward you for these inbound links.

Below are some tips for preparing the content for your new SiteSuite website.

Clearly explain what you do

Use keywords in context

Where to use your keywords

The next step

What to do once your site is live

Specialist help

Clearly explain what you do

Clearly explain in text what products and services you offer and the regions you service, using your clients' language. Search engines are not good at 'reading between the lines', so you need to help them by being specific. Remember that search engines cannot 'read' images and animations, so your text has to compensate for the visual cues that the search engines miss.

Tip: Don't waste the main heading on a page or the first sentence with generic phrases such as 'Welcome to our site'. If customers and search engines can't figure out what you offer in the first heading and sentences, they will move on.

Do this:

Limousine Hire in Melbourne

Travelling by chauffeur-driven limousine adds that magical touch to your wedding, school formal or special event. Johnson's Hire has been offering professional limousine services in Melbourne for 20 years and we will ensure that you arrive on time and in style. Book a limo or stretch limo today.

Don't do this:

Welcome

Johnson's Hire is a family-owned business and has been offering professional service for 20 years. Call us today to make a booking, or click here.

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Use keywords in context

You need to include relevant keywords within sentences, headings and titles in your web pages. Keywords are words or short phrases that people might use to look for your type of business, products or services when using search engines (e.g., 'limousine hire in Melbourne', 'limousine services', 'limousine hire', 'stretch limo').

You should use relevant keywords within context in your web pages, but not excessively. Using keywords excessively, or using ones that have nothing to do with your business, could result in your site being blacklisted by the search engines. Similarly, adding random lists of keywords, especially in hidden text, could result in your site being blacklisted. Using keywords repetitively will also drive customers away. Whilst you want the search engines to send people to your site, your ultimate goal is to communicate with your customers.

Use your location

When choosing your keywords, think not only of your products and services, but also your location and the areas you service, otherwise you will be competing against everyone in your industry, world-wide. For example, if your showroom is in Melbourne, mention 'our Melbourne showroom', rather than 'our showroom'.

Identify your niche

It's much easier to get better results with keywords relating to a niche market's needs (e.g., Australian women looking for shoes in size 10 and over), than for keywords relating to the general market's needs (e.g., men and women around the world looking for any kind of shoes).

Make each page unique

Make sure each of your web pages has a unique title and unique content. The keywords you choose for each page should reflect this. Think of each page as having a different emphasis.

Search engines rank web pages, not websites, so each page can only rank well for a few keywords at most and your pages can't all rank well for the same set of keywords. If you try to fill a single page with all of the keywords related to your business, no single keyword will stand out to the search engines and they will not consider that page to be a good match for any specific search query.

Do some keyword research

Here are two free keyword tools. Search Engine Optimisation specialists use more sophisticated keyword tools, but you need to pay to use them.

Google Ad Words Keyword Tool

Yahoo's Overture Keyword Assistant

Tips for using Google's Keyword Tool:

• Switch the language/country preference to English/Australia (the default setting gives you results for the UK)
• To see whether many people search the Internet for particular keywords (e.g. 'limousine hire'), select 'Global Search Volume Trends'.
• Searching by 'Keyword popularity' will show you how many advertisers are bidding on the same keyword in online advertisements (i.e., whether there is a lot of competition for those keywords, which means they will cost you more if you advertise online).

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Where to use your keywords

1. Page titles

• It's extremely important to have a different title for every page.
• A page title should reflect the content of the page (i.e., the title should summarise what the page is about).
• Put the most important keyword first in each title.
• Let your web designer know what page titles you want to use.
• To learn what a page title is and how to choose them, see our article, Better Page Titles.
   

Example:

2. Headings

• Put your most important keyword towards the beginning of headings.

3. Within sentences

• Use keywords within sentences in the top and towards the bottom of your web pages.
• Don't list keywords randomly on your web pages. The search engines treat this like spam and you could get blacklisted for it. Instead, use your keywords in moderation and in context within sentences. Write your web pages to provide helpful information, not to indulge in a keyword frenzy.

4. Within bullet point lists, where appropriate

• Use keywords within bullet point lists, as long as there is a good reason for providing a list (e.g., lists of your products, services, product features, benefits, etc)
  

Example:

Johnson's Hire offers:

• Clean, well-maintained limousines and stretch limousines
• Professional, well-groomed chauffeurs
• Punctual and reliable service
• Limousine hire rates that give good value for money
  
  

5. Within areas of bold or italic text

You can highlight some keywords in bold or italic text within sentences, headings or bullet points, but don't overdo this, as doing it excessively will drive customers away and could result in your site being blacklisted by the search engines. Write your web pages to provide helpful information, not to list keywords.

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6. Within link text and link titles

• Link text and titles should describe the purpose or the destination of the link.

Do this: Book a limousine


Don't do this: To make a booking, click here.

7. Within image descriptions

• Let your web designer know what the description should be for each image.

Do this: Stretch limousine for hire

Don't do this:  picture001

8. Description meta tags and keyword meta tags

• Meta tags give the search engines extra information about your web pages; they can't be viewed by website visitors.
• Meta tags should reflect the content of the page (i.e., don't use words in your meta tags that aren't used in the page content).
• You should use different description and keyword meta tags for each page.
• Description meta tags are more important than keyword meta tags. Some search engines ignore keyword meta tags.
• The search engines often display the description meta tag in their search results, so it is worth taking the time to write a good description meta tag for each page. See Google's article on good meta description tags on their official webmaster blog. 
• Limit them to a maximum of 150 characters, including spaces (about 20 words).
• Separate keyword meta tags with commas. 
• Your page titles and the content of your pages are much more important than your meta tags. Don't rely on your meta tags for good results.
• Let your web designer know what the meta tags should be for each page.

Examples:

Keyword meta tags: stretch limos, stretch limousines, stretch limousine hire, stretch limousines Melbourne

Description meta tag: Stretch limos and stretch limousines for hire in Melbourne at Johnson's Hire

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The next step

If you're preparing the content for a new website, give your website designer:

• your page titles
• your page content, including the headings
• your images and image descriptions
• your keyword meta tags
• your description meta tags

You can complete this form for your web page titles and meta tags and give it to your designer.

What to do once your site is live

It can take 3 – 12 months for the search engines to index a new website. It also takes time for the search engines to assess the 'worth' of your web pages and decide where to position them in the search results.

During this time, you need to promote your website in other ways (off-line as well as online) and make it as appealing to the search engines as possible. Your SiteSuite website management tools allow you to update and refine your site, which is important for your site's performance in the search engines.

See our action plan for promoting and optimising your site.

Tip: One of your top priorities should be to get good quality inbound links. Find out what inbound links are, which links are the best and how to get them.

Specialist help

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO (refining the structure and content of your web pages to improve their performance in the search engine results) is a specialist industry and we recommend that you consult an expert.

We have formed a partnership with Melbourne IT, a major web services company, to provide specialist SEO services. As a SiteSuite client, you are eligible for discounted pricing for Melbourne IT's SEO services. Please call 1300 130 875 to be referred to Melbourne IT for a quote.

Related articles on site promotion and optimisation

How to promote and optimise your business website

Why you need inbound links and how to get them

How to optimise your page titles

Top 10 Search Engine Optimisation tips

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