Blending Keywords and Quality Content in Your Website Projects

Having the perfect customized website won't do you much good if no one can find it. Optimizing the ideal keyword phrases of your business for search engines is an integral part of developing your website as well as your business.

It's commonly known that including keyword phrase targets in the text of your website helps improve searchability, but implementing the keywords can be a tricky process and can do more harm than good if done improperly. For example, if you sell backyard play sets, you’d want customers to be able to find your website when searching not only for play sets, but also terms like swing set, gym set, and playhouse – terms that customers might substitute for play sets when searching for your products. By thoughtfully placing play sets as well as any relevant substitute throughout the text of your site, you'll improve the searchability of your website. However, when selecting keywords, it's important to remember that you probably won't be able to get results on any phrase you desire. Select phrases that are too vague and you'll be competing with every company in your industry. Choose phrases that are too specific and they might get searched only a handful of times per year. Once the right phrases have been selected, inserting them into the text of your website must be done carefully. The insertion of keyword phrases can be detrimental to your business as a whole if the keywords interrupt the natural flow of the text of your website. If keyword phrases are awkwardly placed throughout your website, they'll most likely serve as a distraction to visitors, thus negating all the work you've done to improve your searchability.

Keywords mean nothing if they’re embedded in sub-par content. Content that’s poorly written or organized, that’s salesy or full of typos, that’s been pulled from a print publication and slapped into your site without being webified will be distracting not only to the visitors of your website but also to the actual search engines.

Here's a few tips for creating keyword-friendly content in your website projects:

• Unless you’re a professional writer yourself, hire one. And not just any writer – one with experience writing sites optimized for web readability and web searchability.

• Write for your customers. Yes, your website should tell your story. But think first about your customers’ story. Who are they? Why are they visiting your site? What information do they need? If your content consistently addresses your customers’ questions and interests, you can bring them back to your site again and again.

• Remember that size matters. To optimize search results and get Google visiting regularly, you need lots of content – and you need to update it regularly. How much content do you need? Start with at least as much as your competitors have, and go from there.

• Don’t write for search engines. Yes, keywords are important but if you overload your copy with keywords, you’ll lose credibility with your readers. Plus, Google and other search engines know how to identify quality content..

Most people are unaware that keywords should be included in the structure of your website as well as in the text. When Google “reads” your site, it doesn't start with the text. Instead, it starts the same way you would – with the title of the site, the navigational structure, and the names of the pages. If your keywords aren’t included in those elements, Google won’t understand and classify your site as well as it could. Consequently, your search results won’t be as good as they should be. A quality web developer should work with their clients before planning or building their site to decide on the right keywords. Business owners would do well to seek a web building service that utilizes the following four-step process:

1. The client brainstorms several keywords for their site

2. The developer does research on those terms to find out if customers are actually using them in searches or if they are using alternatives or derivatives of those terms

3. The client and developer select the keyword phrase targets together

4. Once the keywords are decided upon, the developer should build the site structure around those keywords, embedding them in important elements like the title tags and heading tags.

It’s the content of your site that matters most. Great content helps establish you as an expert in your field. It gives customers a reason to visit your site. And it helps Google understand your site and classify it properly in search results.

The ideal web building service should be able to create for you not only a visually stunning website that conforms to the highest standards of usability, but also a site that will get viewed by the right people, and as a result, drive business.

Atomic Interactive is proud of the success that their Ohio web design studio has seen.