SEO Tips - Guidelines for Adding Text to Your Pages

Fancy design, audio and video files, flashy images or galleries all have their place on some websites, but text rules the web. You may have heard people say "Content is king" when referring to successful website building. This was a statement made by Sumner Redstone, made famous by Bill Gates in 1996 and it is still true today. So, what does this mean to you when building and maintaining your website? Here are a few tips for you to consider:

Do's

• Use readable fonts
• Use colors that contrast
• Talk to your visitor
• Add a call to action

Don'ts

• Don't be repetitive
• Don't use small fonts
• Don't forget to spell check
• Don't forget to add your keywords

For more on these points, please read on.

1. Types of text
   You may have heard of "H tags" or "Heading tags" before, but may not know what they are or how to use them. Here are your text element options in Websitebuilder.
   
   The H1 element outlines the structure of the page. The H1 tag is the most important. It tells your site visitor and search engines what the page is about. The H1 tag is the content title. You want a few words that make the subject clear. The H1 tag usually uses a larger font to help make it stand out on the page. It also tells search engines to pay particular attention to those words.
   Important: The recommendation is that you use only one H1 tag per page. While it is a more important tag, use it sparingly. More is not better when using H1 tags. If you feel you need more than one, please consider separating the content into multiple pages.
   
   The H2 and H3 tags are used to further create sectioned content under the main title of the page(H1) By design, these tags are less important than the H1 but still serve to tell search engines and site visitors that there is a definite section change in the content.
   
   The Paragraph element contains the bulk of your page content. It is where you will describe in more detail, the information you set up with the H tags.
   
   
2. Fonts
   Your font choice isn't dictated by search engine rules. You need to make sure the fonts are easy to read by your site visitor. Fancy fonts may be appropriate for your H tags as the larger size is easier to read, but for your paragraphs, you want to stick with fonts that are very clear at smaller sizes. If you use multiple fonts, that is also tiresome to the reader, so our advice would be to stick to one or two. You can then use bold, italics and underlines to further highlight points within the paragraph.
   
   Make sure you choose a size that doesn't make the reader squint when reading from a distance. It isn't uncommon that a person's large monitors are 2 feet or more from their chair and small fonts are tough to see. You will probably be best off with your paragraphs being 14px to 16px in size.
   
   Use colors for emphasis on a word or to make links stand out, but the most important thing to remember about color is contrast. Do not use a lighter color font on a light background, or dark on dark. Once again, you want it easy to read.
   
   
3. Content quantity
   There is a wide range of opinions on how much text should be on the page. You should create and organize your pages so that you can place a minimum of 200-300 words per page. You can use more if the topic of the page warrants it. Search engines scan your pages and try to determine what the page is about(H1 tag helps). From these scans, your page will be indexed and keywords assigned. Keywords are often taken from your page content, so make sure you work those words into the content.
   
   
4. Content quality
   First and foremost when starting a page, you need to focus on saying something of value to your readers. Quality is at least as important as quantity. What this means is that while you want to get to the minimum word count on each page, you must not do this by repeating the same thing over and over, or needlessly adding too many adjectives to pad your word count.
   
   Always check your spelling and grammar. If necessary, there are tools available online that can analyze this for you and make suggestions. If your page is filled with grammatical and spelling errors, it will not inspire visitors to contact you.
   
   Organize the page. Each paragraph should describe one idea. Keep paragraphs short and in plain, simple language. When writing your content, stop thinking about the search bots and think about your customers, existing and potential. You need to describe clearly and concisely why they should choose you.
   
   Place your most important bits at the top of the paragraph. Webpage readers have a short attention span. If you want them to read on, you have to grab them with your best stuff first and then drill down to more detail.
   
   Numbered or bulleted lists are a great tool as well. Just make sure they are well formatted. You can have each item be one or two words or a full sentence, but don't mix them together. If you have more to say about each item in the list, you can make them a link to another section on the page, or another page altogether.
   
   Make sure to include a call to action. Ultimately, you want to have your site visitors convert into customers, so you need to ask them to buy your product or call/email you.