How To Write Your Website Content

Many of my clients struggle with this one, and I will try and explain it in laymans terms.

You need content in the form of written text for the search engines to index your website pages and rank them.  Each page on your website can rank on it’s OWN in the search engines.

Google Loves Large Informative Pages Full Of Information And Text

(Incidently Your Clients And Visitors Will Also Love You For It, Write To Empower Them To Make A Decision On Your Product / Services Based On What Your Words On Your Page Tells Them.)

A page is defined as any article roughly 500 + words. Idealy you want a page to consist out of 750 – 1000 words (2013 Studies shows that the top 5 websites have average 900 words on the page) for best chances of ranking but 500 – 900 words will do.  If you give me less than 500 words on a page then you lessen your chance of ranking.

Let Your Website Be Your Silent Salesman! Let Your Words Do The Talking!

Now, the part that I have to explain in as simple terms as I can.  You can only optimise your page for 1 – 3 phrases MAXIMUM.

Idealy only 1 phrase, but 2 – 3 may work.  What is a phrase?  We talk about keyword phrases.  Keyword phrases are what people type into the search engines when they make a search. For example ”apple pie recipes“.  That is a keyword phrase consiting out of 3 words.  2 words or less is normaly not a keyword “phrase” and should be avoided.

Do Not Try And Rank For just one word say “apples”.  It does not work.

What are your clients going to type into a search engine? When you do searches, do you look for specific things or do you just type one word keywords in like “technology” or “fruit” or “accommodation” ?  No, your searches are more specific with 2 – 5 words in them.  Same with your clients.  Do not try and rank for just one word as it is not possible.

Should you rank no 1 for “technology” what are you going to sell there?  What is someone who types in just the word “technology” looking for?  Can you say for sure and offer it to him?  You have to think what you would type into a search engine to find your own website.  Will you type in “accommodation” in Google and see what comes up or will you type “bed and breakfast accommodation cape town” in stead if that was what you were realy after?

An Example

If you have a website about fruit, normally your homepage will be an introduction to all the kinds of fruit out there.  On this page you will list all the fruits that are discussed in detail on your website.  You will from there have sub pages linking to the different fruits like “apples”, “pears”, ”bananas” etc.  The homepage is filled with “fruit” information and when someone types in “apple pie recipies” your homepage will not show up because the homepage is not relevant to “apple pie recipies” it is about fruit.

Google Ranks PAGES and not WEBSITES.  Your page about “apple pie recipies” is going to rank above the rest of your website.

Now, on your APPLES sub page you have lots of things to talk about.  Types and varieties of apples, apple uses, apple recipies and more.  Idealy you will have dedicated sub pages for each of these.  For example on your apples page you will have introduced the different varieties that you get ex “golden delicious”, “granny smith” etc.  Each of these will warrant once again a sub page of it’s own.

In the search engines you have to keep it VERY simple. You need to keep your page (500 - 900 words more is better) very close on topic.  “granny smith apples” differ vastly in search engine terms from “golden delicious apples”.  If you wanted to rank for each of them you would have to write a seperate 500 - 900 + word page on each one (900 words is ideal). One page on “golden delicious apples” and one page on “granny smith apples”.

Your 1 – 3 keyword phrases that you want to rank for on a page must be CLOSELY related to each other.  For instance do not give me a 500 word article and tell me you want to be #1 for “apples, bananas, pears, peaches, watermelons and litchis”.  It does not work like that.  I know in OUR minds these are related as “fruit” but in Google (which is a computer) these are worlds apart.  You cannot rank for ONE word on a single 500 word page.  They need to be “3 word keyword phrases” each one on it’s own seperate 500 - 900 + word page.

The ideal 500 - 900 + word page will be about “apple pie recipies” + ”applie pie baking” + ”applie pie recipe” as they all relate to “apple pies” in general.  A page with “banana split”  + “apple pie recipe” + “litchi juice” is not closely related enough to rank for any of those keywords.

Do not send me a 500 word article with a list of 50 single one word keywords that you want to rank all for with just the one 500 word article as this will not work.

How Do You Need To Write Your Page?

You need 500 - 900 words (more is better 750 words + is what I use these days, 2013 studies shows 900 is best) with your keyword phrase that you want to rank for used in:

• the first sentence of the first paragraph
• in the last sentence of the first paragraph
• 3 – 4 times throughout the rest of the text
• the last sentence of the last paragraph

Just write normally and explain your product / service as comprehensively as possible.  Do not try and cater for the search engines by stuffing words in the text, write as if you are writing to a friend and cater for your visitors and customers.

Remember…

Website content (the text) is just part of the success of ranking on the search engines, an even bigger part is LINKS TO YOUR WEBSITE.  If you want to rank high, you need LINKS from other websites.  Please read my page about SEO  to understand how rankings work.

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