My SEO e-Guide by Nicolas Gremion - HTML preview

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2. Content Updates/ Changes

Every document has parts that are more important to the search engine like the main piece of content on the page and elements that are much less important like JavaScript code, date/time information, adverts or boiler plate information. Using the relative importance of each element the search engine looks at the frequency and amount of changes over time. For example, changes to the content would have significantly more importance than changes to advertisements on a site. Google looks at whether fresher or staler documents are preferred by a search user and then ranks fresher or staler documents higher, accordingly. For example, people searching for 'Top of the league' would prefer a fresher document than perhaps people that were searching for information on 'Winner of 1982 World Cup'.

So, content is King. All search engines, directories, or otherwise, will index your web site based on CONTENT. ALL of them. Content is the key to developing an Internet presence.

You will build a good reputation with high-quality content. If you have interesting content other webmasters will want to link to your site. (Obtaining links into your site is a priority for SEO.)

Also, your content must be focused. Content that works around one theme will help you attract your target market. You will attract attention to your site if you can become a respected provider of information about your niche.

Look at whether Google favors fresh or stale documents by conducting a search and seeing if the top results are from fresher or staler documents. Once you have this information you will have an idea of how often or not to update the main content elements of your document.

Writing Strategy

So, as you can see content is very important in search engine optimization. Here you can find a useful and effective writing strategy.

Write in "chunks"

Don't overwhelm visitors with too much information in one paragraph. Present information in neat, readable chunks. If you chunk, your paragraphs will be about two to three sentences each.

Use headlines

Headlines are another way to make your pages more readable. In the past, using keywords in headlines or heading tags in the HTML was a recommended technique for optimizing your page. We still think it's a worthwhile technique.

Use lists

Lists allow visitors to scan your pages quickly, as well.

Do not use underlines for web text (oops…)

Underlines should be reserved only for hyperlinks. Underlining text may confuse your visitors. Does it annoy you when you try to click on underlined text that goes nowhere? Why would you want to annoy your visitors?

Write at an eighth grade reading level

You want to make a web page easy to read. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be interesting. While you need to keep your visitors excited about your content, many people don't have time to read involved text. If you need to include detailed explanations of your product, save them for pages deeper in the linking structure. Even so, always explain things to people in as simple a way as possible. Your first priority is getting visitors interested. For an example of this type of writing, read a newspaper. Newspaper stories are generally written at an eighth grade reading level.

Use the Inverse Pyramid

Write your most important information first. Again, the newspaper story is a good example of this format. This format allows people to read only the first few paragraphs of a story to get the main facts. On the Web, you want to do the same thing: present the juiciest information first. This way, people can quickly scan the first few sentences of the page to see if it contains the information they are looking for.

Using the Inverse Pyramid style of writing has an advantage in search engines, as well. Some search engines will not "read" the entire page. Although this is changing and