Earlier I stated that Google was like the reviewer who moderates the blog posts on YOUmoz. I also said that one way you could write quality content was to write good content, and not keyword stuffed hype. I will give some more specific examples of how to write good, quality, content for the SEO efforts on your website.
As I said last time, quality content should be something PEOPLE will want to READ, not just keywords for Google. There are three reasons for this.
First, Google is usually smart enough to notice when you have tons of keywords and little real sentence structure. When Google can offer spell checking in its search results, you know that it has at least a rudimentary knowledge of spelling and grammar. Google (and Yahoo!, MSN, etc) is more likely to penalize you for excessive keyword use.
Second, even if Google didn’t catch on to your keyword stuffing, what is a visitor going to think? Most results are snippets of your site. If someone searches for your keyword, what are they going to pick, a result with good sentence structure that looks like it was taken out of a book, or a long list of keywords (which often occurs from a nav list, etc)? Of course they will pick the the one with good, meaningful sentence structure. What good does it do to be number 1 for every keyword on Google if no one wants to click your result?
Lastly, if someone did visit your site, he or she will most likely leave in 30 seconds. Why? Because a site that is full of keywords and h1 headings and lists is usually not very informative or professional. Too many scam sites are set up to be extremely attractive to search engines (using poor quality content and other bad, short term techniques). Do you want to be associated with a scam site? No! Too many SEO “experts” lose sight of the fact that we are here to unobtrusively bring CUSTOMERS to our clients. Not HITS, but paying customers. Hits that do not turn into sales are just a waste of bandwidth.
But how can you write good content? It is relatively easy. Take any literature that your client has about their company, product, whatever. Then, see how it can best be adapted to the web. Put hyperlinks, headings, feel free to insert a few (I repeat, a FEW) additional keywords. You should have keyword density greater than the average, dead-tree brochure. Then, insert the text in the site.
If your client does not have any acceptable copy, work with them on making some. Either way, make sure it describes the product, service, etc. Make sure it gives a good reason to make a purchase, and lastly, make sure it has some keywords that people are likely to search for. And please, PLEASE, do not try to enter in keywords that are not related to the site. Putting free, free, free, etc in the keyword meta tag (largely ignored by search engines today) will only penalize your site. And you do not want people looking for freebies coming to your site when all you sell are high-end luxury vehicles.
Remember, the main goal of SEO is to build a solid foundation that will continue to grow into the future. Using “get rich quick” schemes for SEO will not work. Slow and steady wins the race.
