The Best Place to Put SEO Copy on Your Web Page

[thejenn]

Authored by: Karon Thackston

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/tha.../0324_kt1.html

A Snippet:

It seems like a funny question to me, but it gets asked a lot. "Where should the SEO copy go on my Web page?" That question gets asked so much because there are several pieces of out-of-date information, rumors and myths with regard to text placement, when writing SEO copy.

[warthog72]

I'm relatively new to SEO (and new to the forum) but don't necessarily believe that location of content on a page is irrelevant; especially when it comes to ranking 1 page against another.

Example (and I will have to see about testing this live):

Two pages are both about Coffee Mugs.

Both pages are brand new with no links in or out of the page, but both pages offer information about Coffee Mugs. Both pages have the same title and key words, but the 1st sentences on each site reads like this:

1. Welcome to Joe's Java. Come on in and sit right down; its time to relax with some great caffeine and a vessel for its holding.

2. Jane's Coffee Mugs are like none in the industry; the only unbreakable coffee mugs on the market.

Given that all other content is relatively the same and key word density is the same, I have to believe that site number 2 will rank higher than site number 1 (as was taught in my seminar and perceived with my logic, however faulty it may be).

I'm also under the belief that presedence is set when reading a page on generic sentence structure as applied by grammar rules - yikes - too technical sounding. Basically, generic paragraph and sentence structure grammar rules (we learned in 2nd grade) apply to spiders, where the 1st sentence identifies what a paragraph is about. Further sentences are in support of the 1st. On a page, more weight is given to information at the top as it presents the case of the page.

Obviously, good, readable content is always key, but position does have a say in things. Again, my opinion and hypothesis in need of testing, but I'd love to hear others insight.

Thanks for such a great forum!

[copywriter]

Given that all other content is relatively the same and key word density is the same, I have to believe that site number 2 will rank higher than site number 1 (as was taught in my seminar and perceived with my logic, however faulty it may be).

That may be if you're dealing with two sites inside a vacuum as your example indicates. But the Web is not inside a vacuum.

[Robert]

Welcome to the forum, warthog72!

[vangogh]

Great article Karon. And regardless of any effect your words will have on a search engine it's still more important to write them for your visitors.

[VirtualOffice]

As SEO becomes more and more a 'hot topic' lots of theories about the what's why's and how's about - however it seems to me that SEO should be more a natural extension of your website, and not something calculated or worded 'for search engines.'
Your site is for your visitors first and foremost - writing your content up for a search engine is going to put alot of potential customers/clients off.

Our suggestion: in terms of content -
Write the most descriptive, keyword dense content you can, with your clients/customers in mind.
The search engines will pick up the keywords either way - so you might as well keep the people who keep you in business in mind first.

Of course, there's lots more to SEO than just content, but this IS the number one factor.

For our own websites and client websites we always use the client perception as a measuring stick. The keywords are already going to be part of the content anyway.

Also - USE alt tags for all images - put some nice descriptive content behind them so that there's something there for the engines AND for those people who's computers or connections don't load images properly.

[copywriter]

Your site is for your visitors first and foremost - writing your content up for a search engine is going to put alot of potential customers/clients off.

Correct and what I've been preaching with ferver for years That's exactly what this article points out.

[A.N.Onym]

That may be if you're dealing with two sites inside a vacuum as your example indicates. But the Web is not inside a vacuum.

The thing is that the example was a hypothetical one - warthot72 was simply comparing two almost identical websites in theory.

However, I have to disagree with the conclusion about the two presented examples.

The first example is more human-friendly, as it lists the benefits (albeit replaces 'cup' or 'mug' with 'vessel'), while the second example uses the keywords "coffee mugs" but lists only one benefit, which doesn't touch on the nerve of the customers.

It'd be much better to create something like this:
"Get a Jane's coffee mug to enjoy your take of coffeine in the only unbreakable coffee cup on the market"


The whole concept of SEO is misleading. It should be 'website optimization for the humans' in stead of 'search engine optimization'. Web developers should develop websites, taking into account the words visitors use to get accessible from the search engines, not to cheat the search engines.

[vangogh]

It really is hard to compare two sites in a vacuum since we all know that no two pages are that identical. In fact if they were one would be seen as duplicate content.

I understand the theory, but also disagree. Search engines are much better at understanding words that are related and it may be that one extra mention of your keyword isn't as good as using a synonym of your keyword.

The theory really comes down to saying that either the slightly higher keyword density will improve the rank of the site. There is a point though where search engines (mostly Google) will see that extra keyword as an attempt to manipulate results and actually rank the other page higher.

Regardless though of where you rank unless your content is meangful to visitors it doesn't make a difference. MSN is still somewhat easy to manipulate with overuse of keywords on a page. You can possibly still rank well with spammy tactics like listing keywords over and over. So you may get more visitors that way, but you still won't sell them anything, since the content is meangless.

[Proword Writer]

Originally Posted by warthog72

I'm relatively new to SEO (and new to the forum) but don't necessarily believe that location of content on a page is irrelevant; especially when it comes to ranking 1 page against another.

Example (and I will have to see about testing this live):

Two pages are both about Coffee Mugs.

Both pages are brand new with no links in or out of the page, but both pages offer information about Coffee Mugs. Both pages have the same title and key words, but the 1st sentences on each site reads like this:

1. Welcome to Joe's Java. Come on in and sit right down; its time to relax with some great caffeine and a vessel for its holding.

2. Jane's Coffee Mugs are like none in the industry; the only unbreakable coffee mugs on the market.

Given that all other content is relatively the same and key word density is the same, I have to believe that site number 2 will rank higher than site number 1 (as was taught in my seminar and perceived with my logic, however faulty it may be).

I'm also under the belief that presedence is set when reading a page on generic sentence structure as applied by grammar rules - yikes - too technical sounding. Basically, generic paragraph and sentence structure grammar rules (we learned in 2nd grade) apply to spiders, where the 1st sentence identifies what a paragraph is about. Further sentences are in support of the 1st. On a page, more weight is given to information at the top as it presents the case of the page.

Obviously, good, readable content is always key, but position does have a say in things. Again, my opinion and hypothesis in need of testing, but I'd love to hear others insight.

Thanks for such a great forum!

HI everyone

From a writer's point of view, the second example is more suitable especially if it is strictly used as web content. There is a distinct difference in writing for print and writing for the web because computer users do not read every word and skim the text for the information they want. The first example is too wordy. As for the positioning of the wording for SEO, I agree the second example is better because it has targeted the keywords in a nice tight package and eliminated the excess.