| Web Site Content Guidelines
© 2007 Herman Drost - All Rights reserved
Whenever you optimize a web site to improve your rankings in the search engines, it's a good idea to be familiar with the Webmaster Guidelines from Google. If you don't follow them you may suddenly find your site penalized for using incorrect techniques. Some of these may include hidden text or links, repeating your keywords too often in your web pages or using link schemes to artificially inflate your rankings. If your site gets penalized, it may no longer appear in Google or any of Google's partner sites.
Here's my own summary of Google's Webmaster Guidelines:
1. Write lots of targeted content
Write content related to the topic of your web site. Don't write on subjects that are far removed from the purpose of your site. The more focused your content is the greater the possibility Google will rank it higher than your competitors.
2. Use targeted keywords
Do your keyword research first so you know what words to include in your web content. Find keywords and keyword phrases related to your main keywords and use them on your internal pages. If you compile a list of long-tail keywords
(words that are not so competitive) you will be able to create many new pages targeting each of these keywords.
3. Use headings and sub-headings
Computer users tend to scan web pages because it's harder to read text on a screen than on a printed page. Headings and sub-headings allow the reader to quickly spot the main points you are making on your web page. Make sure these headings clearly describe the content contained in the paragraphs below them.
4. Use text instead of images
The Google crawler does not recognize text contained in images therefore use text instead to describe images, content and links. Your site may look pretty using lots of images, however you reduce the potential for obtaining high rankings plus slow the loading of your pages.
5. Don't use hidden text or links
Some site owners try to trick the search engines by hiding links in the text so visitors inadvertently get taken to another site or create hidden text to get more keywords in their html code. This will be seen by Google as spamming
the search engines and your site may get penalized. If penalized your site may disappear from Google and will take a long time to get it back. Therefore stay within the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
6. Include a Site Map
Every page of your web site should be reachable from at least one text link. A site map enables visitors to quickly view the content of your site by giving you an overview of where the links of your pages are and provides a description what they are about. It also allows search engine spiders to index your whole site from the site map link on the homepage. If you have a very large site (over 100 links), create several site map pages.
7. Fix broken links
Links are what make up the World Wide Web. Search engines will find your site by following the link from another site. If your site contains broken links the spider will not be able to index all your pages. Visitors will click elsewhere if they can't link to pertinent information on your site. Run your site through a link checker http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
8. Validate HTML
Incorrect HTML code can prevent your site from displaying properly. One missed CSS or HTML tag can throw your whole web page out. Incorrect HTML will also slow the indexing of your site by the search engine spiders. Some browsers are also very picky when displaying web pages. A few are very forgiving of html errors whereas other browsers may mess up the appearance of your whole web page. Correct HTML will help you to avoid these problems. Be sure to check every page with an HTML validator (validator.w3.org)
Conclusion
Before you embark on your next site design, review these web content guidelines. It will help Google and other search engines find, index, and rank your site. If you wish to increase your rankings focus on writing lots of targeted
content and acquiring many high quality links that point to your site.
Resources
Google's Webmaster Guidelines
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