SEO and Web Editors – the Basics III

SEO: Content and the Role of Relevancy

by Alan Eggleston

Content relevancy is as important to SEO (search engine optimization) as is meta data. Content relevancy says that what is in your page text is directly related to what is in your meta data, verifying that your Web page deserves a high page rank compared to others. The purer your relevancy, the better your page rank. Theoretically. Search engines use proprietary algorithms, which they constantly tweak, to figure out your relevancy, but follow some basics and you should remain relevant whatever they do to their algorithms.

To build high relevancy, there needs to be a high correlation between your meta data and the content on your page, focused on use of your keywords in both. Four areas provide opportunities to clue in the search engines about your relevancy as they index your site: headlines, body text, anchor text in links, file names.

Headlines

Headlines (or titles, as some editors prefer to call them) at the top of the page are a search engine’s first cue to what the page is about. Your headline should contain the main keyword or keywords for your page, and the main headline should carry the H1 heading tag to add weight. Subheads may also contain keywords but should carry lesser tags, like H2 or H3, which still add weight. Editors will probably have the greatest difficulty writing main headlines for SEO, because headlines that are good for SEO tend to be less clever or creative; for best ranking potential, place the keyword or keywords as close to the beginning of the headline as possible.

Body Text

Body text should run 250 to 500 words to provide enough indexable content for search engines to evaluate. Less or more is all right, but the 250 to 500 words goal is ideal. Again, place keywords closer to the top or beginning of the article and use them once again at the end. Don’t worry about using a certain percentage of keywords, try for more natural usage, but don’t skimp. Avoid keyword stuffing! Use keywords enough that someone won’t doubt that is the topic they are reading about, without going overboard. To add weight to keywords, add “stress” attributes like bold and italics on first use – but use this minimally to avoid messing up the design.

Editing SEO for non-fiction and news will be much easier than for fiction. Not only will it be harder to adjust body text simply for SEO, it probably doesn’t suit your mandate. Authors will likely not be helpful, either. My suggestion for literary sites is to focus on SEO on the higher-level pages like the Home Page, About Us, Contents, Contact Us, and leave the actual literary content alone except perhaps listing tags like author, genre, title, and subject matter and make sure those are higher on the page itself, as they usually are.

Anchor Text in Links

Anchor text is the wording you use for a link. For instance, if you are going to link to the Google website, you might link to www.google.com using the word Google, and Google would be the “anchor text.” The search engines will see topic relevance between your content and the link you’re providing, and presumably you are talking about Google in your article. Thus, in your article, when you are linking to other pages or other sites, try to use suitably relevant anchor text to the sites or pages to which you are linking. Avoid phrases like “click here” or “read more” or other irrelevant words for links, which add no value.

File Names

File names may seem like an odd thing to worry about, but they’re part of a search engine’s evaluation. They consider things like image file names, html page names, and even audio files. So, when you are thinking through nomenclature for your site, give weight to naming things instead of assigning random numbers as is often the case with content management systems. If you are using a picture of a cat on the page, for instance, name the file cat.jpg (or if there is a way to use a keyword for the page in the file name, use it!) Include the keywords in the URL naming scheme.

As far as file names and URL paths are concerned, you may need to have a talk with your IT people. If nomenclature currently doesn’t support using keywords, you may have to wait for a redesign to invoke it. But eventually, you will need to make them change over to this system if you want to improve ranking.

Anything you can do to show search engines that what’s on the page is related to what you’ve labeled in your meta data, you are providing grist for improved page ranking. And remember, you’re competing with other sites, many of whom are doing the same thing. Don’t forget to look at competitor sites to see what they’re doing, then adjust your relevancy to compete for better ranking! Search engines index sites again and again, so you have multiple opportunities to improve your ranking.

Topics I will introduce you to in the days ahead include:

• Introduction
• Meta Data Makes the Difference
• Content and the Role of Relevancy
• Links add Value and Authority
• Keywords for Planning and Clarity
• Promotion Implies Relationships
• Site Prep Paves the Way
• Resources for Staying “Clued Up”

Alan Eggleston is a freelance Web writer and Web editor for E-Messenger Internet Consulting Inc. Join him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.