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Adding Content to Web Pages
The most important part of your website is its content. The quality of content and how it is presented on your web pages will determine the success or failure of your website.
One would think this lesson would come after the lesson on making your web page template. It will help you to build a more complete template if you have a good idea of the content of your web site.
What is your website’s purpose?
The way that you present the information on your website will be influenced by the purpose of the site.
If the purpose of the web site is just to give information about a topic, a business, an individual or organization, then the content will be presented much like a typical text book.
If the purpose of the website is to sell a product or service, the presentation of the content will resemble the ads in a newspaper or magazine.
What are your keywords?
Keywords are words that describe the main idea of your web site. They are also words that people type into a search box on a site like Google or Yahoo when they are looking for sites like yours.
Keywords can be single words or phrases. These words and phrases are important whether you will be depending on traffic from the free search engine results or paying for your traffic through Pay Per Click services.
Think about the content of your website. What words or phrases do you think people would use to find your web site on a search engine?
Researching Your Keywords
There a tools on the internet that will help you in the selection of your keywords and phrases.
One of the best is Wordtracker. You can actually see what words a person is typing in at MSN, or Yahoo or Ask.com to find the kind of website that you want to make. Wordtracker offers a free trial that allows you see the results from MSN. If you want the full blown figures from all the major engines, the cost is about $7US to use the tool for a day. Visit wordtracker.com
If you want to see results from both Wordtracker and Overture (Yahoo PPC) try the Keyword Suggestion Tool at DigitalPoint.
Make a list from your research of the keyword phrases that you think would be best suited to your content.
Keywords in Your Pages
If you have a list of 10 keyword phrases, don’t try to target all of them on one web page. Use no more than 2 phrases per web page. Use the most important phrases on your home page.
Place the keyword phrases in the head section in the Title and meta tags. Use the phrases in your header tags that introduce pages and paragraphs. Use the phrases in paragraphs and link text. Don’t use the same phrase more than once per 100 words. You should also use synonyms for the major keywords in your phrases.
Once you’ve placed the keyword rich content on a web page, read it back to yourself. Does it sound right? It may take a little practice to write content that appeals to both people and search engines, but it can be done.
For more on the use of keywords in your web pages read Search Engine Optimization Basics at WebWorkshop.
Writing to Sell
It can be an especially difficult task to write keyword rich content when you are trying to sell a product or service. For that I’ll refer you to an expert. Joe Robson is one of the leading internet experts on the subject of Writing Ad Copy. Read His Tutorials
Appearance of Content
Words on a computer screen are much harder to read than the words in a book or newspaper.
Large text, though it may not look professional is easier to read than small text. Experiment with the size of your text.
Large blocks of text are very difficult to read on a computer screen. Use smaller paragraphs that give your reader’s eyes a resting place. This is especially important if you use small text.
Use header tags to introduce paragraphs. This will help to break up the monotony of boring paragraph text.
Use lists where possible. There are 3 types of list tags that you can use in HTML. Lists add open space to your page and are easier to read than paragraphs.
Add pictures to your web pages. Do it right. Don’t take a picture straight out of your digital camera and put it on a web page. Use optimization software to resize it and optimize it so that it loads quickly.
The 3 types of image files that work best on web pages are gif, jpeg and png file types. See HTML code for adding images. See our product and resources page for some great software for optimizing your images.
