Web Page Content

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

Try to achieve a word count between 300 and 750 words on each page. Shoot for a keyword density of between 2% and 3%. If you are optimizaing for a competitive industry and you are not high in the rankings then you can try pushing the density higher.

Do not optimize all your pages for the most popular keywords. This advice applies most for new sites. The search engines use link popularity as a key ranking factor and it takes a while to compete effectively with established sites. You are better off being on the first page of a less searched term than page 20 of a very popular keyword phrase. Very few people make it past page 2 of the search results.

Use a keword suggestion tool to find appropriate kewords.

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

Use one or more header tags in your main page body and include your most important keyword phrases. Use header tags and you can use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to alter the appearance of your header tags so that you don't have to change the look and feel of your site.

Use the different versions of your keywords, when possible. The search engines have improved their use of word stemming. Word stemming describes taking the stem of a word and generating common variants of it. The search engines can find search results that include keywords that extend beyond what you searched for.Keyword: submission Possible stemming results: submit, submissions

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 blank table rows can prevent your menus from appearing first.

Avoid duplicate content between your own site and others. Google is quite efficient at identifying duplicate content. Both versions of the content will not appear near the top of the search results.