Contrary to the popular belief (well, one colleague) that SEO is in fact done by wizards, there isn’t a magic formula that makes your website appear on the first page of Google. A popular aphorism in the world of search engine optimisation is “content is king” – and although this phrase may be overused, it is very true.
Having your front page text optimised for search engines is not as daunting as it may sound. The point of optimising text is not just for increased rankings, but also to help engage visitors and encourage them to spend longer on your website. Without any text on your home page whatsoever, both users and search engine crawlers could end up wanting to do the same thing — leave.
The following steps can help to analyse your current home page.
- Existence: The front page should have some text
- Relevance: The text should stay specific to your area of business
- Focus: The text should be relevant to your target audience
- Sufficiency: The text should leave visitors wanting to know more
Although this four-step process may sound like something you would hear in therapy, it is a good way of analysing the front page content of your website. When writing content for SEO, you should focus on your main topic area and write content that is easy to understand, relevant to the target audience, and focuses on the key subject you are talking about.
Wizardry isn’t going to attract more visitors to your website, but having good, clean content may just help.
2 | Kieron Hughes
August 19th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Yeah I see your point, but I was talking about the initial text on the home page making users wanting to find out more about the business/product/website.