Web Site Content Guidelines

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 a summary of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:

Web Site Content 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.

Points 5-8 will be in my next post.