Content Development Tips

It’s often stated in the world of search engine optimization that ‘Content is King’. The truth is, while it isn’t the most important aspect of your SEO efforts, content development does play a crucial role.

Visitors will stay at your site longer and convert more often if they can identify with the message you’re trying to convey. They come to your website looking for answers to their problems and your content should provide the solution they’re looking for.

It does you absolutely no good to incorporate animated flash presentations or lots of color into your site if your content is subpar. When developing your website or when posting content, always consider your visitors first and the search engines second.

Content development isn’t brain surgery but it does take an innovative, creative person to create content that will grab a visitor’s attention and compel them to want to stay on your site. If you’re considering creating your own content for your website instead of using a professional SEO consultant here are a few tips to keep in mind.

• Your content must be unique. It’s unprofessional to copy content from another website and place it on yours. You should always avoid having duplicate content on your site. If you’re unsure whether your content is unique or not you can use Copyscape to verify it before publishing it to your site.
• It should be relevant to the theme of your site. Whatever the topic is of your website or page should be the focus of your content, as well as your chosen keywords. ‘Nuff said.
• Consider keyword density. The ratio of your keywords, or keyword phrases, to the overall amount of text should be as optimal as possible. Most experts agree that an optimal range is between 1% to 7%. Don’t overuse your keywords or the search engines may consider it as spam and penalize your ranking.
• Use your keywords, or keyword phrase, in the title, meta description, alt tags (words that describe your images), header tags, and in the main text of your page.
• Concentrate on optimizing for one keyword, or keyword phrase per page. I’m of the opinion that it’s easier to optimize for one keyword per page than for several. While it is possible to optimize for more than one, it’s also more work. Let experience be your guide.

In conclusion, optimizing your website with relevant, unique content as well as strong keywords and proper keyword density will drastically improve your search engine rankings, and in turn, visitors to your site.