Building your website with SEO in mind

Creating search engine friendly website content
The bulk of what a search engine can see in a website is its written content (as opposed to images, etc.). If you want the search engines to like your site and send you visitors, your site has to have a good deal of written content.

Keeping pages topic focused
When you start to develop a page for your website, consider the page’s main focus and take a look at your list of keywords – what keyword(s) best describes what’s on that page?

There are some areas of a web page that are important and will call out what the main topic of the page is to search engines. A good plan when creating a page is to keep it topic focused by integrating your keywords into different places such as the:

• Page Title
• Description
• Keywords
• Headers
• Special formatting such as bolding or italicizing
• Throughout the written content
• In text links

Writing title, description and keywords tags
The meta title, meta description and meta keywords tags, can be added to your site by clicking on Page > Page Properties > Metadata.

• The area labeled Page Title is where you put your title tag. Your page title tag should include the main keyword or concept of your page, your business or website name and, if relevant, your location and should be under 70 characters long. Here’s a basic example:
  Fine Gold Jewelry | ABC Jewel Company | My Town, Texas

• The area labeled Description is where you put your description tag. Your description tag should include the main keywords for the page and the name of your company and, if relevant, the location. It should be under 200 characters long and should entice visitors to click through to your site. Here’s a basic example:
  ABC Jewel Company provides customers in and around My Town, Texas with the finest yellow and white gold jewelry imported directly from Italy. Stop in today!

• The area labeled Keywords is where you will put in the main keywords for the page. Don’t stuff keywords, only list keywords that apply to the content of the page. Here is a basic example:
  fine gold jewelry, gold jewelry, white gold jewelry, ABC Jewel Company, My Town Texas, TX

Incorporating keywords into content
When you write page content, the keywords should blend in naturally – don’t overdo the usage of keywords or the search engines will ignore the pages. Internet content should be easy for the reader to scan or read through. You can create this effect with:

• Short paragraphs
• Logical page breaks utilizing headings and subheadings
• Bullet pointed and numbered lists
• Bolding or italicizing (more useful for search engine optimization than optimum readership, don’t overdo)
• Creating keyword rich text links

Here is a short example using ABC Jewel Company’s webpage about fine gold jewelry. Note where the keyword fine gold jewelry is used.

Experience Fine Gold Jewelry
Gold jewelry never goes out of style, and for good reason. Fine gold jewelry has adorned the bodies of royalty to everyday people for centuries. Buying gold jewelry can be a rich experience. Are you looking for the kind that you don’t find at the local jewelry store? ABC Jewel Company specializes in the kind of premium gold that marks a special occasion for life.

What to keep in mind when purchasing fine gold jewelry:

• What type of wear and tear will the jewelry be facing?
• Does the wearer have a preference between white and yellow gold?
• What is your price range?

Learn more about the various specifics of fine gold jewelry here on our site. We’re passionate about gold and want to share that passion with you.

Giving images alternative text
Search engines cannot see graphics. They read text instead. You can help the search engines see the topic of your graphics by giving them an alternate attribute or alternate text.

If you added the picture using the Picture Widget, you can add alt text as follows:

You can add alt text for pictures added with the Text Widget:

1. Click on the picture in your Text widget.
2. On the Text Editing Toolbar, click on the cogwheel icon (which is next to your Float options).
3. A dialog box will open up allowing you to type in the alternative text desired for your image.
4. Click OK.

Creating search engine friendly hyperlinks
Search engines follow text links through a site and they also note what text is used. Putting your keyword into a text link further enhances the keywords relevance on your page. To create a keyword rich text link in HostPapa Website Builder: