Feed the Search Engines

Content...Content...Content

Just as our bodies need food to fuel us everyday your website needs fuel to feed the search engines for placement and inclusion.

There are many different factors to consider when trying to optimize your website but one of the easiest and most successful ways is to feed the search engine with content.

The engines thrive on seeing that you are adding new content to your website very often. As a webmaster, I have seen the results of many of my customers' sites climbing to the top by adding good industry related content to their site. You may feel you neither have the time or the content to add to your site but in today's competitive web world how can you not justify taking the time or creating content. There are many different ways to add content to your site that may take as little as 10 or 15 minutes a week to do so.

Here are a few ideas, and if you can apply one or all of these to your site you will be feeding the hunger the search engines are craving for ...Good Quality Content:

Industry Related Articles - There is no better way to earn creditability with your customers then writing articles about your industry. Your article does not have to be long it just has to give good quality information about your industry. Once you write an article, not only do you want to upload it to your website but you need to submit it to one of the many article submission websites. Don't forget to add your name and URL to the bottom of every article you submit to build your link popularity.

Products Reviews - This is one of the easiest things to add to your website. No one knows your products like you do. Give your visitors a complete detail of how to use, what to do or how your specific product or service can help them.

Blogs- Blogs can greatly increase your visibly but they have to be created and used properly. Blogs do require a commitment from you but remember this; the search engines just love them. Your blog needs to have a specific reason, a draw for your visitors, a reason that they would bookmark it and come back and read it time and time again. Whatever you decide to blog about it needs to be updated on a daily or every other day to make it work for you.

Customer Testimonials - What a great way to show your potential clients the confidence your past customers have in your products or services. Ask all your clients to provide you a short testimonial. It is an easy way to add current content to you site often.

Industry Tips & Ideas - You are the true expert in your industry and your customers want to hear what you have to say. Everyone likes to get something for free, so share a bit of your knowledge with them by providing free tips and ideas on how to better use your products or services.

Newsletters - E-Newsletters are a great way to keep your name in front of your customers, but what many website owners fail to do is to add those newsletters to their websites. With the over abundance of junk email we get many people opt out to receive e-newsletters on a regular basis. In this case it would benefit you by adding those weekly or monthly newsletters to your site so they can be read there.


A couple things to remember when adding new content (pages) to your site:

Don't forget to make your title tags captivating.

Keep your keywords toward the front of your title, description and keyword tags. (Even though very few search engines take into account the description or keyword tags anymore it is always best to still add them.)

If writing an article take one of your keyword phrases and write a specific article about that, keeping in mind keyword density.

Which ever of the above ideas you choose to use keep in mind your target market and create your new pages with it in mind... Remember industry related content!

Don't forget to update your site map with your new pages.

Update your Yahoo urllist.txt and your sitemap.xml file with Google as well.

Lastly...add a new page to your site every week better yet every day!

Author - Tracy Fredrychowski - SEO Instructor
Search Engine Academy of SC
http://www.searchengineacademysc.com
Learn the latest principles and strategies of search engine optimization and become a Certified SEO Professional. The Search Engine Academy of SC holds SEO workshops in Greenville, Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina.