The search engines, especially Google, want to deliver pertinent information to people when they perform a search. After all, isn't that what you want when you "google" for something? This is why they put so much emphasis on content. And, that's why people googling put so much importance on content as it's the information they read on a web page.
I've found that it is best to load the content of each page with the keywords and keyword phrases that you have built that page around. Keyword rich content gets the attention of the search engines. Especially when the content follows along with the guidelines I discussed yesterday.
I'll be discussing web site structure later but for now, just remember that the web site revolves around a central keyword or keyword phrase. Each page within the web site will revolve around a more specific keyword or keyword phrase that is a specific "sub keyword" of the main site keyword.
For example, your site is made around the phrase "travel in Colorado". This means that the index, or home page, will focus on that phrase. The second page might focus on, say, "travel in the Colorado mountains, or travel in Summit County Colorado. See what I mean? The third page might revolve around travel to Denver Colorado. Over time, you can expand your web site infinitely on the subject of travel in Colorado.
Each sub-page of the web site can be linked to more specific information if you wish. The main thing is that you have good content on each page that is specific to the keywords for the page. And the content is keyword weighted. This will make the search engines not only find your site and index it, but spider through all your pages and index them because they contain good content, specific to the subject (keywords), of those pages.
Where do you get the content? After all, you're going to need a lot of it, especially as your site grows. I suggest that you begin by writing all the homepage content yourself. This will make it unique to your website. You will also need to write some, if not most of the content of your sub-pages. But this can often become a laborious task. There are two easy ways to add content without having to write it all yourself.
The first is to have someone else write the content. A ghostwriter. They're easy to find and inexpensive. To find cheap ghostwriters all you need to do is go to
http://www.elance.com or
http://www.rentacoder.com . You put up an ad for a writer and receive bids. Check out the writer's previous track record to make sure they do quality work. You can usually get a high quality article or paper on a specific subject in the range of 800-1000 words for around $15. If they want more than $15, then you might try someone else. Those wanting more than the going rate generally have master's degrees or above and think way too much of their work and themselves.
But you're just getting started on your web business and money is a concern. There is a cheaper way of getting good, keyword specific content in the form of articles that can be put up on your website. In fact, this content is free. You can find free article content through the various article directories on the web such as goarticle.com and ezinearticles.com.
Finding articles can be a task too. You have to go through the directories trying to find articles that are specific to your needs. You also have to determine their quality (lots of bad stuff out there), and whether they are keyword weighted enough for your purposes. Luckily, Jason Potash has made this simple for most purposes by offering a free, article finding software called Orwell. Just go to
http://www.portalfeeder.com/report/, download the report and at the end of the pdf file you will find the download link and the unlock code for this great software.
Now realize that when you use someone else's articles, you must use them intact. Headline, author, article body, resource box, nothing can be modified. But that's okay, it's a you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours type of thing. You need the content and don't want to write for hours yourself when there's experts out there that have already done it and they want to spread their articles to as many places on the web as possible because their resource box has link(s) in it that lead readers to their websites and also the search engines like those incoming, one-way links so their websites rank higher.
I'll be discussing the importance of incoming links later but for now, Let's continue with content. You now know that it is the content that brings the search engines to your pages through the keywords you have decided on for your website. And you also now know that visitors come to your website mainly through the search engines. Content is King! And it's the best way to increase the page ranking of your website to get traffic to you.
Just like with a store front, you can't make sales unless you have foot traffic in through the door. Once the visitor arrives at your website, it's also the content that keeps them there and makes them buy from you, click your Adsense ads, etc. This is why I've begun showing you how to make a website and web business with the topic of content.
So, you now have done the keyword research. Now you're going to begin to accumulate articles and other content, whether original or from an outside source. The next step is to begin building the actual website and pages.
You've now got the design of your web site cemented. I still have to talk about content a bit more. After all, it is king.
I stated that the content of your index, or homepage needs to be original and unique. You should write it yourself. But what about the other pages of your site?
First, each page should focus on a narrow sub-keyword or keyword phrase of the web site as a whole. Each page should have content that revolves around these keywords/phrases. It just takes too much time to write everything yourself. You could hire someone through elance.com to do all this writing for you, but it's much easier to set up these pages using a mix of your writing and articles written by someone else. That's where the Orwell software comes into play.
Orwell was designed to search the article directories and find you keyword specific content that you can use to populate the pages of your site. It's a wonderful tool. Just pull it up and let it load. Then, click on that little magnifier icon. This draws up a search box. Put in your keyword and click "fetch". It will bring you pertinent articles to that keyword/phrase. Note that it tells you the keyword density of your keywords in the article so you can choose articles that the search engines will love.
When you find an article that looks like it fits your purpose, click on it and bring it into Orwell. When you do this, the article will display so you can read it. It also will bring it into the panel on the right. This is the important portion for making your web pages.
If the article is one you want for your web site, you can save it as "html". This html can then be copied and pasted right into your web page. Saves a lot of time. Just set up your page name and title to that article's title, paste the article into the web page where you're putting the content, and, lo and behold, you have a new page for the site. You'll need to tweak a few things on the page like the description, the header, etc. but in minutes you'll have a new page.
Be sure to add that page to your site map so the search engines will find it. So simple.