Text Heavy Pages

In order to get leads and sales from your website, you need to get visitors. Traffic. Quality Traffic to be precise.

The more targetted and qualified the traffic - the higher your conversion rate will be.
One very effective and cheap way to do this is to get the search engines to list your website in the natural listings.

As we all know, there is an art to optimising websites and half the battle is to make your website visible and search engine friendly, yet not look to horrible for 'human' visitors.

1) I seriously hope your entire site contains more than 500 words of text. For pages to do well in the search engines, they usually require around 250-300 words of text each, as a minimum. In my experience, a web site with less than five text-heavy pages does not perform well in search engines.

2) I'm assuming you are looking at the green bar PageRank in the Google Toolbar? Let's just get one thing straight here. That little green bar is NOT a true indication of your site's Google PageRank. That figure is known only to Google. It's not even a close approximation these days, because it is only updated when the Toolbar software is updated and by then your site's true PageRank score has changed dramatically anyway. So it's always out of date. You shouldn't be looking at that green bar at all.

3) Generally, a page with more text on it will perform better than a short page with very little text. This is because a page with more text provides more information to search engines about your site. It also generally contains more keywords and keyword phrases so it can be compared to search queries and found to be a more relevant match to a wider range of search queries. But the PageRank of a page is not dependent on the amount of text on that page, it is dependent on a wide number of on-page and off-page factors, only some of which are within your control.

4) In my opinion, you should concentrate on fleshing out the pages of your site dramatically. The site is not performing well in search engines because there is so little content available to visitors and bots. The site is also not very search engine compatible in terms of navigation and tag optimization. You should implement text links to make it easier for search robots to find and index all your pages and you should have an SEO expert review your Title Tags, META Tags and visible copy.

The benefits of ‘Text Heavy Pages’ include:

• Highly Targetted Traffic coming to your website.

• Easy to Update. As the pages don't contain any images, movies, FLASH, or complex navigation - you can update them easily.

• Increased Search Engine Rankings/Exposure. .Give the search engines what they want!

- Keyword-Rich Text

You may know how important good keyword rich text is on your website for good search engine rankings, but do you know how to write effective text with good keywords? Well first it's very important to determine what your keywords are. Going to a site like Overture's Keyword Selector Tool and typing in a few of the keywords that you think are the most important and seeing which ones rank higher should be your first stop. Then you can subtlely integrate the words in your text. However don't sound like you're forcing it, just type natural phrasing and make it readable so it's not obvious you're keyword stuffing.

Keyword density has grown much speculation amongst SEO experts. Some agree that keywords are important but there is no exact percentage that you should meet, while others seem to think having your keywords at least 1-4% of your text is the magic bullet. There is no way to be absoltely certain and with Google and other search engines changing their algorithms all the time, both ways could certainly be right. Anyhow there are some things you can be certain about when writing good keyword rich text.

1. Most good keyword phrases are 2-5 words in length. These are the search phrases that most surfers will use to find your website. It's actually better to keep your keyword phrases longer than shorter. It cuts down on competition and it's been proven that shorter keyword searchers are shoppers while longer keyword searchers are BUYERS. Having the keyword phrase "tennis balls" is too hard to rank for and if you do get a high listing, too hard to keep. While "yellow Dunlop tennis balls" would be much easier and it attracts people who are looking for a specific thing.

2. Only use a few keyword phrases per page. You cannot optimize a page with 20 different keyword phrases. If your site can target many different keywords, spread them out across several pages. If you try to bunch them in all on one page, not only will you sound obviously like you're trying to stuff your keywords but you'll also have the adverse effect on your rankings. The search engines will not know exactly what term to rank you for out of so many so you will have worse rankings.

3. Don't use poor grammar or misspelled keywords. Remember that your website is for your surfers above all and not for the search engines. It will only make you look less professional and lacking attention to detail if you use mistakes on purpose on your site. Sure people do make typos when searching but it's simply not worth sacrificing your professionalism to capture that small minority of the traffic.

4. Always use your home page to capture your most important keywords. Then if you have some other minor keywords that you wish to target, put them on other pages of the site. Also keep your title bar nice and neat. Even if you have a ranking of index.html2 or index.html3 you could still get more traffic than a index.html1 ranking if your title bar looks more appealing and relevant

These are some simple tips on writing better keyword rich text. While it's great to add your keywords in your website text, remember above and beyond all it's better to have good quality text than robotic, keyword stuffed text. People will see right through that and it only looks bad. So write your text in normal English and then later read through it and see if there are spots where you can slip in a few extra keywords without interrupting the flow of your text.
Takeaways
Keep your text readable and not obvious that your keywords are stuffed
Don't use keyword misspellings or poor grammar to get extra visitors
Put your most important keywords on your home page
Did you know?
Shorter keyword phrase searchers are shoppers but longer keyword phrase searchers are buyers.

SEO Copywriting, or to give it its full name, search engine optimization copywriting or search engine copywriting, is the technique of writing the viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms.
As well as the viewable text, SEO Copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description and Keywords tags, headings and alt text.
The idea behind SEO Copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages (often called "doorway pages") that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. Therefore, the engines cannot possibly view SEO copywritten pages as undesirable, and the rankings they achieve tend to be as stable as those that are achieved by other search engine optimization techniques.
Practitioners of the search engine copywriting method recommend around 250 viewable words per page, with one, or at most two, targeted search terms strategically placed within the text and other on-page elements.

One thing that can be said about search engine optimization copywriting is that works for suitable websites and for suitable search terms (see below). SEO Copywriting can achieve rankings that tend to do well across the search engines, although no page can do equally well in all engines.
It is sometimes said by practioners of search engine optimization copywriting, that the method tends to maintain its rankings as the engines tweak and change their algorithms, whereas other methods produce less stable rankings. This can't be true. If 2 pages are in the top 10 search results; one getting there by the SEO copywriting method and the other by different search engine optimization techniques, they are both there because they match the engine's criteria (algorithm) quite well. When the criteria is changed, the match that each of them had is necessarily changed. The matches could become closer to, or further from, the engine's criteria. Whether each page goes up or down in the results depends on what changes have been made to the engine's criteria. It is a matter of chance, and not a matter of whether SEO copywriting was used or not.

Competitive search terms
The technique only works for search terms that are not particularly competitive. Competitive search terms are those where many people are trying very hard to gain the top rankings for their sites. Casino, sex, insurance, health and hotels sites are among the most competitive, and there are many other topics where people fight for rankings. For medium to highly competitive search terms, other, more vigorous, methods are needed.
  Suitable sites
Not all websites are suitable for SEO Copywriting. Many simply don't have sufficient text on their pages, and adding text would spoil the design or nature of the sites. Also, some sites that do have sufficient text sometimes don't want to be forced into changing what is written on the pages, just for the sake of the search engines.
  Cost, and the limitation of targeted search terms
SEO Copywriting is a time-consuming process, and professional SEO copywriters are not cheap, therefore the cost of each page is significant. Since each page can target only one or two search terms, it would usually require a good number of pages to be made-over in order to target all the required search terms.
Tied to a copywriter
What happens when a website owner finds it necessary to alter the text on a page that has been worked on by a professional SEO copywriter? It can't be done without either ruining the costly SEO work and, with it, the page's rankings, or re-hiring a professional copywriter to redo the work once the changes have been made.
Slipping in the rankings
If a page is successfully optimized by SEO Copywriting, and is ranked in the top 10 search results for its targeted search term, then the optimization was worth the cost. But what happens when someone else decides to optimize a page from a different website for the same search term? If their optimization technique is successful, and the page gets into the top 10, the index.html10 page will slip to index.html11 - and off the first page of results. Then suppose another website does the same thing...and another...and another. Sooner or later, the successful page will slip from the first page of search results. As soon as people decide to optimize their pages for the chosen search terms, existing top 10 pages are on the way down. Then what?
If the sliding pages were professionally SEO copywritten, there is nothing else that the technique can do for them, or if it can, the whole costly copywriting process must be redone. Adding one or two instances of the target search terms isn't merely a case of typing them in somewhere, because the final text still needs to read well for the site visitors. Again, the website owner is tied to a copywriter.

Summary

SEO Copywriting is good when:-

• there are not many search terms to target
• the search terms are on the low to middle end of competitiveness
• money isn't a problem, or if it is your own website
• you don't mind the text on your pages being frozen (if money does matter)

Otherwise, 'search engine friendly' techniques should always be done as a first measure, and real search engine optimization should be done for the search terms for which 'search engine friendly' techniques are unsuccessful.

NOTE:
Competitive search terms are not necessarily those where millions of results are returned. They are those where people are competing hard for the top positions. There's a big difference.

- Speak to Your Audience

Your Audience Knows (Your Keywords) Best

With research tools such as bidding reports, keyword suggestions and real-time statistical reports, search engine marketing (SEM) enables marketers to drive more cost-effective, targeted traffic to their sites than ever before. Yet too many companies are losing out on higher SEM returns because once the user clicks on a paid link, a disconnect takes place.
The scenario goes something like this: A prospective customer searches a generic Web search engine for a keyword you’ve purchased. They scan the paid and organic results and determine that your paid link best fulfills their purchase intent. They click through to your site and attempt to pinpoint that product by searching for the same keyword phrase in your on-site search engine. The search often fails in one of two ways: a “No Results Found” message or irrelevant listings immediately frustrate the visitor. They persevere, altering the search phrase slightly. Again, no matching results found and no suggestions for an alternate course of action. They leave, discouraged and frustrated that companies buy keywords for items they really don’t sell.
Sadly, your company did indeed stock that product but it’s tagged with corporate speak, not consumer language. You lost a customer because your search engine doesn’t speak your audience’s language.
A recent ClickZ article by Pete Blackshaw, entitled “Practice What You Search” pinpointed the yet-extant issue of poor on-site search results. Mr. Blackshaw, chief marketing and customer satisfaction officer of Intelliseek, stated, “If search is the Web's killer app, why are marketers so lousy at applying the fundamentals of consumer-friendly search in their own backyards?”
He questions why companies would even waste a couple million dollars on a Super Bowl ad when their site’s search engine had absolutely no results to correlate with the marketing message. Identifying the root cause, he said of marketers: “We spend a fortune on advertising designed to spark actionable curiosity, but we fail to provide outlets to act on that curiosity.”
Mr. Blackshaw concluded, “Your brand equity is the sum total of your search results. If a no-brainer search term yields blanks on your site or takes a useless detour, your brand simply isn't in touch with the consumer. His dictum to marketers is, “Practice what you search!”
Revamp your overall search strategy by first understanding what your customers search for and what results they click on. Then modify elements such as keywords, titles and descriptions in your on-site search engine to speak their language, not yours. Regularly practice popular searches at Web engines and your own site to ensure cohesiveness. Connect the dots for your prospects by pairing up marketing messages with SEM, organic keywords and especially, on-site keywords, and discover what a well-connected search campaign will do for your brand.
Home Healthcare Monitoring
One volunteer’s company offers a system that remotely monitors certain medical conditions, allowing patients who would otherwise be in the hospital to rest comfortably at home. I asked the marketer to name the most important keyword her SEM campaign should target. The reply: “Home healthcare monitoring.”
First, I searched for that phrase on the home page. Nothing. Clearly, this highlights a huge challenge.
Next, I used Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool. This tool determines how many searches were performed on a keyword in the previous month. I input “home healthcare monitoring.” Overture reported not one single search was performed on that term in the previous 30 days — an even bigger challenge.
“Home healthcare monitoring” is an industry term. Sellers of these sorts of solutions use it to describe what they sell. As is too often the case, it’s not how the audience describes it.
Users think about these services in terms of “medical alert,” “alarms,” and “systems.” That the devices are installed in the home apparently isn’t as important to them; they’re interested in the systems’ response features.
Some keywords that were searched:

• “Personal emergency response”
• “Medical alert systems”
• “Medical alert system”
• “Medical monitoring”
• “Medical alarm systems”
• “Medical alert devices”
• “Medical alert alarm”

Next I looked at Overture’s View Bids tool. “Medical alert systems” has multiple bidders; the current high is a whopping $14 per click. “Personal emergency response” is selling for over $3 per click. How do we know we zeroed in on the right language? There were clues.
First, “home healthcare monitoring” had zero or low-query volume. It also had no paid search advertising bidders. “Medical alert system” was queried more frequently. It had multiple bidders and a high bid price (suggesting it’s valuable to competitors).
This problem is more common than you might think. Marketers think of solutions in their own terms, not in their audience’s terms.
Here’s my favourite example: A major bank’s executives recently asked me to ensure their site could be found on every search for “lending” because they’re one of the world’s largest “lending” institutions. I pointed out what I thought would be obvious: Their audience wants to “borrow.” Smiles slowly formed on their faces. They got it.

- Use Easy to Understand Language

• Write your website content with human visitors in mind - not the search engines.
• Use proper grammar and spellings. (keep your target audience in mind, spellings are very different In UK and US English standards )
• Provide useful information
• Unique content ( borrow concepts but do not steal content ;) )
• Write in easy to understand language
• Make your titles interesting - Try to have your keyword in your title
• Break down entire content into smaller paragraphs.
• Try to put your main points in bulleted lists - it helps your readers!
• Add keywords in your content wherever applicable - BUT do not overdo!
• Use call to actions wherever applicable.

- Build Your Copy Around Your Keywords

Build Your Search Engine Optimization Around Your Content
In the early days of the Internet, web enthusiasts were enamored with the technological marvels that the new age put before them. It almost seemed as though the written content in web sites was put in as an afterthought. Today however, users and developers alike have rediscovered the importance of the written word. Content plays a large role in keeping visitors on a web site. And search engines and their spiders just love good quality, regularly updated content.
When a search engine spider indexes your web site it automatically searches your meta tags and web site content for information. This information is then cataloged and when people search using particular terms that were included in your tags and content your site can be found.
After a visitor has searched for, found, and entered your site, clear easy to understand information helps them to move easily throughout your site. Web sites can be confusing places but good clear copy can make life so much easier for your guests. If the writing is unclear and contradictory then the chances are that you will quickly lose your visitor.
Web content writing requires skills that are different from traditional writing skills. Your web content writer should be able to combine writing, marketing and research skills. They should be able to understand your market segment and how they should target this market. Keyword analysis and density play an important role in content development. Your writer should be able to help you integrate potential search terms and keywords into your web site content. The challenge is to produce readable and grammatically correct text while having the desired level of keyword density.
When considering keyword density a good rule of thumb is four keyword phrases per 250-300 words or for longer pages 8-10 times in 500 words. This equates to a keyword density of 1.6 - 2% per page.
So, how do you know if your written content is doing its job? Start by looking at your web content in relation to your business, your market, and your customers. Do you think your site works? Are you getting visitors and are you keeping these visitors? Are you getting the sales you want? Ask your friends and colleagues what they think of your site. Look at some of your competitor’s sites. Is their message clearer? Look at your search engine rankings and compare it with the rankings of your competitors. If you have any doubts about your content seek out a writer who is skilled at developing content that has been optimized for the web. With their help you can rediscover the power that your web site content plays on your search engine rankings.
- Keyword Integration

If you’re reading this and your web site doesn’t contain any body text on the home page, give yourself a good smack and go to your room without supper. When you’re ready to behave and design your site with the search engines in mind, come back out and read this article. 
The simple truth is this: search engines read text and not much else. You absolutely, positively need to use text on the pages of your site that you want indexed and ranked highly. Not graphical text that you created in your fancy design software, but actual, visible body text. Not sure if your site uses graphical or body text? A good rule of thumb that I learnt from search engine guru Danny Sullivan is to try and highlight the text with your mouse. If you can drag your mouse over the text when viewing it in a browser, chances are this is body text and the search engines can read it.  
Ok, so you’ve created your body copy and your site pages are loaded with good old-fashioned text. But your job’s not over! Now you need to get targeted. Search engines aren’t going to rank your web site about socks highly if your body copy talks about foot sizes. You need to get specific. If you sell socks, then for heaven’s sake, make sure your site copy has plenty of references to the word socks! At the risk of sounding like Dr Seuss, if you want to be found for, big socks, small socks, cotton socks and wool socks, then mention them all. Better still, sort your copy into categories based on your products and services. If you sell blue socks AND red socks, then have a page dedicated to each kind. This allows you to target niche keywords within your copy and meet the relevancy guidelines for logical search queries.
 
It sounds so obvious, but I’m constantly amused by the number of web sites I see selling particular items without once making reference to those items in their body copy. For example, there are thousands of sites on the Internet promoting web site design services right? Next time you see one, take a look at their body copy. You’ll be surprised how often you’ll see flashy looking sites without a single mention of the phrase “web site design” in their page copy. Instead they’ll use fancy all graphic pages or Flash movies. Or if they do use body text, it might include cryptic jargonised language like “Internet Solutions” or “online brand building”.
 
What the heck does this tell a search engine about their business? Absolutely nothing. Are these sites going to be considered a relevant match for search queries about “web site design”? No way! The creators of these sites might think they’re being clever, but they are really missing the boat entirely. What’s the point of having a web site if you are going to sabotage its ability to be found?
 
Anyway, back to you and your web site. So now you’ve added plenty of text to your pages and the copy flows well for the reader. You’ve researched your keywords and phrases using WordTracker or something similar and now you’re faced with the dilemma of integrating the keywords into your carefully written copy. So how do you satisfy the search engine’s craving for keywords without interrupting the copy flow for the reader? The answer is: very carefully.
 
Let’s take a look at a practical example. We have a client that specializes in luxury adventure travel. Before I optimized their site, part of the home page copy read like this:
 
"We specialise in providing vacations for people who want a personal service. We bring to our efforts a fanatical obsession with quality and exclusivity. We also bring a freshness, an outward-going passion for discovery which justifies our growing reputation as one of the world's top travel providers. We can put together packages that include all adventure activities, accommodation, transport and food”.
 
Extensive WordTracker keyword research for the client had determined that the home page should target the following key phrases:
 
·        adventure travel
·        best adventure vacations
·        tailored travel
·        overseas adventure travel
·        luxury travel packages
 
So taking our original home page text, the challenge was to integrate these keywords carefully and naturally so as not to disturb the logical flow of the copy and lose the interest of the visitor. Here’s how I did it:
 
“We specialise in providing the best adventure vacations for people who want a personal and tailored travel service. We bring to our efforts a fanatical obsession with quality and exclusivity. We also bring a freshness, an outward-going passion for discovery which justifies our growing reputation as one of the world's top overseas adventure travel providers. We can put together luxury travel packages that include all adventure activities, accommodation, transport and food”.
 
Note that the key phrase “overseas adventure travel” accommodates the phrase “adventure travel” too. Voila! The search engines are happy because the site contains text content relevant to related search queries, the client is happy because we were able to integrate the keywords without distracting the visitor and I’m happy because I know the site is going to rank highly for the client’s target search terms.
 
Now go and apply the same principles to your own site...