If you’ve been on the Internet for any length of time you know that content is big business. It’s not enough to have information on your website that you think is interesting. Just like so many other aspects of your business, your website content has to be strategic. It has to be optimized.
Optimized content is like fertilizer–it will boost the growth of your business if applied in appropriate amounts. (Sorry if fertilizer isn’t your favorite metaphor but it’s spring time here and fertilizer is on my mind!).
That’s why it’s really important for small business owners to think about their search engine optimization (SEO) strategy before they launch or relaunch a website. An SEO strategy reflects the research you’ve done to identify those key words your target audience enters into search engines like Google or Yahoo, to find services or products like yours.
Your goal is to “optimize” your website so that when the search engine crawlers go out to index websites for their directory they find your site as among the most relevant for user searches defined by your selected keywords.
The SEO strategy further provides a content framework to help ensure that the content you develop includes those key words. Everything from your blog categories to post titles can and should fit into your SEO strategy.
The most important and powerful tool in your search engine optimization strategy is content. Relevant content, published frequently and optimized for your keywords can propel your website to the top of the search engine results.
Here are three strategies that can help you write and optimize your content.
Strategy #1: It’s not Complicated – One keyword per Page
Remember the KISS philosophy – keep it simple. Optimize each web page for one primary keyword. You could include a couple of secondary keywords that might be extensions of the primary keyword. However, trying to incorporate too many keywords into one page weakens the results.
Strategy #2: Location, location, location – use your keyword strategically
There are a few prominent places to position your keyword so they’re recognized by the search engines. These locations include:
* Your headline,
* Any headings or subheadings in your content,
* And the first and last paragraph of your content.
Strategy #3: Be Real
First and foremost never compromise the quality of your content to try and load your copy with keywords. You definitely don’t want to place keywords in every single sentence. The outcome is an article that is difficult to read and poor audience impression.
The best way to incorporate keywords is to first write your content, and then go back and position your keywords using the strategy outlined. Don’t hesitate to include other relevant words throughout your content as well.
For example, if you’re writing about tutoring services, you can also use the words teaching, educational or learning.
Try to have a keyword strategy whenever you are developing content for your website. Following this strategy will help to remind you of the keywords you need to incorporate to achieve top listings in the search engines.
Just remember that this isn’t meant to be a trick to search engine dominance. This is simply good copy writing. Write for your audience, ensure your copy contains relevant information and write to be understood. Keeping those points before you at all times will go a long way in helping you to develop a successful website for your business.
Good points Sharon! I would also add that you should make sure you use your keyword in your meta-description. That’s the snippet that shows up under your article title in the search engine results. It doesn’t do much for getting your site ranked higher, but people will be more likely to click your link if the description contains the exact phrase they are searching for.
Excellent point Cindy! No wonder you’re one of my favorite content creation experts
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