To get a good position in Google your website must have among other things good content that is relevant to searches. This article discusses how to improve your position in a Google search by improving your content.
Basic websites have a home page, a page “About us”, pages about products or services and a “Contact us” page.
But, if you use WordPress or any other content management system, it costs you absolutely nothing to add more pages of information. Even if you choose to pay for more pages it`s worth it to get your website to the top of Google.
What information?
Well, this is your chance to expand on what your website can do for your visitors.
If you are promoting a range of products, then:
- More information about what these products in general are used for;
- On each product expand its description fully;
- Which people, trades or professions use them;
- Your expertise on these products;
- Where the products come from;
- Tables of sizes, if a clothing or footwear website;
- Testimonials;
- Some history of the development of these products.
If you are promoting a range of services, then:
- How these services can help your visitors;
- What people use or need them;
- How often these services would normally be used and why, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
- Your qualifications or experience in providing these services;
- Testimonials;
- Some history of development of such services.
- What geographic area in which your services are available.
How much content?
The above headings can be all on one page, but you can expand to several pages, the sub-headings being drop-downs on your navigation menu. Separate pages are easier for visitors to find information.
The extra hyperlinks created for each page are extra points in Google.
There is no limit on how much content you can add to a website.
Quality writing
Be sure to write using good grammar and spelling. We once received content written in pre smart phone S.M.S. abbreviations. That is not the language a website visitor expects. We had to return it for a translation into plain English.
Avoid clich�s. They can grate. Use your own original words.
Use clear and easy to read sentences. Sentences of ten words or shorter are easier to assimilate among a few longer sentences. Break your content into paragraphs of not more than four sentences. Use lists with bullet points.
Remember that your writing will be read on a screen that may need to be scrolled down. Cater for shorter attention spans of some visitors.
Spell check and grammar check the content before publishing.
Key words
Words or phrases that visitors use to describe what they are looking for in a Google search should be included in your content. There may be several alternative key words. Use as many as you can throughout the content .
However, don`t let your content appear to be unnaturally stuffed with key words. Let them just show up naturally. The percentage of key words to total words is evaluated by search engines.
Republished articles
If you have writer`s block, you can use already written content on article publishing websites. This can be copied and pasted into your website so long as credit to the authors and their websites is also published in your site and the article is not altered. A search for articles by subject may find something that exactly suits your website.
Conclusion
Putting time into writing good content rewards website owners with good positions.
No one knows the weighting of factors that search engines use to rank websites for content, size, incoming links, domain names, meta title tags or anything else. But, websites at the top of Google for most searches have a lot of well written information.
These articles were first published on www.platywebs.com.au and have been re-published on many other websites and ezines over the years. New readers are still finding them to be of value and up to date with today’s conditions. We believe they illustrate common sense and the value of thinking through situations. Please check out the other articles advising on small business, web design, search engine optimisation, web hosting and domain names.