Surprised to find out that good SEO is more about good content than good web design alone?  Well, it’s true.  Many web designers will tell you that they’re going optimize your site to achieve top search engine rankings—and while their intentions might be perfectly legit—the fact of the matter is that a site’s SEO-friendly design & development really only serves to support excellent, keyword-rich content to be contained within a site.

At least that’s the quick version anyway.  Regardless, now that we have that common misconception out of the way, we should move on to the real bread and butter of getting higher search engine rankings…writing good, keyword-rich content.

What Are The Standards Of Good Keyword Optimized Web Copy?

Writing good SEO-friendly copy for your website will generally be a matter of customizing to specific site needs on a site-by-site basis.  However, there are some rather steadfast guidelines to follow:

Keyword Research First – It’s impossible to write good keyword-rich content without having specific knowledge beforehand on which keywords and keyword phrases you’ll utilize.  Many start their research by using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to come up with ideas for some high demand, low supply keywords to use.  Regardless of the method, you’ve got to pick topically relevant keywords to use first.

Write Naturally – Some “over-optimizers” used to suggest that the best way to rank well with good keyword rich content was to use a certain keyword density, or in other words, an exact percentage of how many times the keyword was used in the copy compared to the overall word count.  This is nonsense these days—could even be implied as spam—so avoid.  Instead, try to create a helpful piece of content that you would write regardless; it’s best to write naturally and then maybe go back and add in the keyword phrase you’re optimizing for a few times where it fits optimally.  Never, never over use it on purpose though.

Optimize Your Title & Headings – Definitely use the keyword phrase exactly once within the page’s title.  This is super-important.  You might also use it naturally in a heading or sub-heading within the page copy.  Other than that, just remember: keep it natural.

Use Similar Keywords – If you’re writing a topic focused piece of web content or blog post, chances are already good that you’re using lots of natural related lingo throughout the copy in addition to your optimized keyword or keyword phrase.  This is good—you’ll want to have a few appropriate related keyword variations and relevant similar keywords within the copy.  Again, though, this is almost instinctual anyway when writing topically-focused web content.

The Bottom Line – Keep it natural, natural, natural.  Write what your visitors want to read.  Be sure to answer questions they’re asking and address concerns they might have.  Really work hard to put yourself in the mindset of your target visitor when writing.  By all means, build the content around a specific keyword—and ideally focus on just one main featured keyword per page or post.  But at the same time, never push it to the level of becoming unnatural or spammy.

Follow these simple steps to writing good, keyword-rich content—and of course, make sure your web designer has paid attention to the important supporting factors within the design & development.  With this strategy in mind, you’ll be well on the way to getting higher search engine rankings.

Trying to scare your website visitors and online customers away?  No problem—here’s some advice on the 7 worst things you could do to your website to accomplish that goal:

1. Make It Too Complicated – When it comes to websites, simple is the name of the game.  Sure, they can use all of the right elements to look professional, elegant, or any other descriptive phrase you could place here—but never overwhelm your visitors by making it too complicated.  Confused and intimidated visitors click the back button faster than you can change their minds!

2. Copy Or Borrow Content – Yikes…definitely don’t do this at all!  First of all, using someone else’s written content without permission is asking for trouble—it is illegal after all.  But the more common mistake is to use the same stock copy or descriptions (with permission, of course) provided by the companies you do business with that are given to all of their other customers to use too.  This is considered duplicate content in the eyes of the search engines, and certainly won’t help your site build traffic.

3. Design It All In Flash – Using a little Flash design in elements of your website here and there is mostly okay (but remember, not all web browsers will display it).  The real problem comes with using Flash intro pages or sites that are entirely Flash-based from header to footer.  While they might look great, they make it practically impossible for the search engines to rank and display your site correctly.

4. Let Your Visitors Know You’re Under Construction – Resist the urge, just don’t do it!  Claiming “under construction” as an exemption for not having the ideal customer-ready website is a major customer confidence turn-off.  If your website isn’t ready for the mainstream, either wait until it is before launching, or at least provide an appropriately scaled-back version until then.

5. Give Your Visitors A Headache – This is easy to do by using too many flashy graphics or too many gimmicks and gadgets that detract from the message at hand.  A couple of other sure-fire ways to give your website visitors a headache would be to use low contrast font/background combinations (you know, the red writing on the black background concept) or forgetting to keep paragraphs short and sweet.  Whitespace is good medicine for web-induced headaches.

6. Use Non-Standardized Navigation – There are a couple of places where we’re all trained by experience to look for a site’s navigation.  Across the top of the page is one place; towards the top of the sidebars is another.  Anytime a website deviates from this standard, it’s alienating visitors, discouraging them from exploring the site further, and potentially creating a usability nightmare.  Steer clear from unusual website navigation concepts.

7. Use Slow Loading Components (Or A Slow Server) – It’s surprising how many folks believe that just because broadband internet connections are practically universal these days, that it’s somehow okay to load a website up with huge-sized, slow-downloading components.  The thing is, now that everyone is thoroughly used to their high speed internet access, the last thing that they have is patience for a snail-slow website or an overloaded web hosting server.  Blink of an eye is the only way to go.

Okay, okay…so please don’t actually do these 7 things.  They really will hurt your website!

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