* User-contributed content: A website that handles support issues may have a lot of use for a user forum. A professional services firm would probably be better off without a forum, with all user-contributed content in form of testimonials.

* Original written content, exclusive and for distribution: Any website can benefit from original content since it draws search engine traffic and puts your best foot forward with visitors. The broader your potential audience and greater competition from other sites, more content you need.

Scheduling Content Updates

Search engines, especially Google, seem to give pride of place to sites that regularly update their content. Regular content updates also give visitors a reason to return.

In short, if you have thirty web pages worth of content this month, it's better to post one page each day rather than put them up all at once. To make sure you do this, schedule an hour each day for updating your site's content.

One way to get regular content updates for your site is to start a blog, a "web log" in which you write your thoughts and post news. The one disadvantage is that many web users are getting tired of blogs, which are often not well written and contain more opinion than information. Search engines, too, seem to be featuring blogs in their results less often.

Identifying a Content Provider

Ever wonder how Bill Gates keeps MSN and Microsoft sites so content-rich? Doesn't he get RSI from writing a thousand or more pages a day?

You guessed it: Bill Gates does not write content for any of Microsoft websites. Nor should you write all your own content. All successful website owners have someone else write a large part of their content. This person or company is often called a "web content provider" or "website copywriter."

You need to select a web content provider with proven experience writing content for web, rather than just writing for print. Ask to see writing samples. You might even ask if you can commission just a single page to start with, for evaluation purposes. Also make sure that you are buying all rights to content.

After all, most important part of your website content strategy should be quality.

Consider description tag just like it is named, a concise description of your site. Keep it to a short paragraph, under 50 words.

Alt tags are text descriptions that are included with code used to display images on a page. Basically an Alt tag is Alternate Text version of image in case image is not displayed. Alt tags are important for creating a fully accessible site for people who use screen reader technology that reads page out loud through their computer speakers. Obviously an image cannot be read aloud, but Alt tag can.

Alt tags are also displayed as a quick popup when you “hover” your mouse pointer over an image. Many search engines, including Google, will index Alt tags along with rest of body copy, making these ideal places to slip in a few more keywords. Just keep in mind that text should accurately reflect content of image. Plus don’t use Alt tags on images that would not normally be read out loud, such as separator lines or bullets.

This brings us to main place to use your keywords, body copy on page, text that your visitors are reading when they visit your site. The major search engines will no longer give you a top placement just for having most instances of a particular keyword on your page. They will give top listing to what they believe is most relevant page on a topic.

Your job is to work your keyword into text frequently, but appropriately. Select one or two keywords and make page specifically about those keywords. Think of yourself giving a PowerPoint presentation to an audience of your best customers. Your PowerPoint slides will be your paragraphs. They should be concise and to point, using your keywords to drive home your point. And, just like in a PowerPoint presentation, you can use bulleted lists to call out several benefits of your site or product, each time relating it to your selected keyword.

So use your keywords appropriately on your site and use them where you can. This will greatly increase your search engine effectiveness.

Article copyright 2005 George Peirson