Headings – flag up what’s good
Writing content for the web can be challenging, especially because web users don’t read a lot. According to a research study conducted by usability expert Jacob Nielsen, web users scan the text and usually read between 20-28% of the words on a web page. This means that one of your main goals, as a site owner, is to make the content on your site highly readable. One of the easiest and most effective practices to improve website readability is to use headings. Aside from making the content easier to go through, headings are also important for SEO because search engines consider them an indicator of the content published on a page. Enhancing content readability Web content management expert Gerry McGovern wrote an article based on his usability study concluding that web users do not scan pages, but blocks or sections of text. He calls it “block reading”. He explains that when a web user sees a page, he doesn’t see it as a whole, but rather as blocks of information. We tend to read in sections, going directly to what interests us or catches our attention. McGovern’s study results are also supported by one of Nielsen’s eye-tracking studies, which reveals that web users do read in chunks. Nielsen says that web users read in a horizontal movement, and then continue down the page in an F-shapped pattern, thus skipping a lot of text in between. As you can see, the coloured red areas are the ones where users looked the most, followed by the yellow areas and then the blue areas, which are the least-viewed areas. The grey areas did not attract any attention from the users. That’s why it’s recommended to break up long articles into blocks of text by using heading to catch the user’s attention and encouraging him to read more. When you don’t use headings, you’re making it difficult for your visitors to scan the page because you’re not giving them any indication of the content on that page. Also, they tend to leave the page immediately if they can’t scan it. Enhancing SEO In terms of SEO, headings are important because they let search engines know what’s important on that page. That’s why, when optimising the content on a web page, it’s advised to include your targeted keywords in headings and sub-headings, thus making it easier for search engines to index it and for users to find it. Header tags Like any article, online or print, the content on a web page should be broken into heading and sub-headings. For instance, the H1 tag is the most important on a web page and should catchy enough to get the users’ attention. The heading is written in bold or a larger font, and it should include the main keyword you are targeting for that page. The sub-headings (h2, h3, etc) are usually written in smaller font but these should also include keywords. The sub-headings are used to break the page into logical blocks of text to make it easier for the users to read the content, as well as to summarize the content that follows. There are many benefits to using headings on a web page, such as enhancing content readability and SEO. When you use headings, users can find your content faster and read it easier once they visit your page.
Content is King and Images can be viral
Since Google Penguin at the end of April, the old adage of “Content is King” has taken a whole new giant step. The new ranking algorithm changes sees websites who publish lots of meaningless content just to get search traffic are now penalised, as are those found guilty of keyword stuffing on their pages. So effectively, the more natural your prose the less chance of it falling foul of the googlebot and with the increase in social searching the better your chances of ranking higher too. Good content, well researched, well written and well presented is ultimately more shareable and the more shares your pages get, the better for your page rank. Equally the more popular your content becomes on social networks, the less reliant on Google and its latest algorithm. The dust has begun to settle and the general consensus from those who have tested is that 800-900 words is the perfect length for the best rank. Yet while length it appears is now important, so originality and quality still rule. In terms of keywords, the cut-back in stuffing suggests keyword density shouldn’t hit above 4% nowadays so make sure you pick and choose those keywords and where they appear very carefully. Presentation is important too, and that includes images. Google has long been promoting the SEO of images in search and now, in the social sharing world, an image really can say 1,000 words and when you only have 140 characters anyway, that is like gold-dust. Images in the form of screen-grabs or better still fully-formed infographics attached to a tweet, Facebook post or pinned in Pinterest suddenly give you much more than limited text characters and a chance to explain and engage. Infographics are constantly being re-tweeted, shared and pinned in the modern social world and a video on YouTube is still by far the quickest route to securing big search traffic. Plus if your page contains something visual and has some dynamism to it, it is far more likely to attract customers back. Getting return visitors is the most effective way of improving visibility of your page. Like any aspect of your business, existing customers are always easier to convert to spend money with you than finding a whole new set. If you have a nice image on your page or social media channels, people will want to share it, so make sure that everything you do is branded too – you want people to know where it originated from and hopefully drive traffic back. Remember what you write on your pages will often be the first thing a potential customer sees about your company. Whether that is landing on your home page or as a search result on Google and the like, where those few brief sentences in your site description could make or break whether they click through.
Authority means top rankings
Trust builds trust and trust builds authority. Authority is an important factor that helps rise up the rankings, which means that, in terms of SEO, authority has a positive influence on search engine rankings. What does Authority mean? Authority refers to: the quality of a site. This can be a combination of the site’s relevance, importance, age, size. a niche site. Most authority sites are built around a particular subject and this helps them gain the status of experts in their field. Leading experts in a specific field are the ones that carry most authority because they are focused on a single subject, and don’t claim to know everything about everything. sites that rank high for a specific keyword or phrase. This means that authority sites are also popular. sites that are referred by other sites that consider them to be the most relevant in that domain or industry. Why authority sites rank higher Authority sites are highly appreciated because of the quality content that people find there. Site owners also ensure to constantly publish fresh and unique content because they know that new content will be spidered and indexed quicker by search engines. This will not only enhance authority, but also help them rank easier for specific keywords in their field. Aside from being rapidly spidered by search engines, authority sites also get links from other sites easier. Quality content gets noticed, shared and linked by other sites. If some of these sites that recommend your content are also authority sites, then the links are A list links, the best quality links one can get. They certify to the quality of the content and they recommend it to their readers. Search engines see that and it’s when they elevate the authority site to the top of the search rankings. How to achieve Authority Authority doesn’t necessarily mean having the highest page rank. It’s more about a mix of relevant, quality content that people find useful, as well as off page optimisation. Domain age is also an important factor because people often link authority to a website’s age. However, even with a domain that has been online for years, it’s still the fresh content, optimised around powerful keywords, that matters the most. If it’s not link-worthy, people won’t share it or link to it. The key to an authority site is to give people what they need, and that is well documented, unique content that they will want to share. It’s that type of quality and useful content that other authority sites would want to be associated with. To achieve that, you need to determine what the trends are in your industry and create relevant content around it so that other sites, authority ones especially, will want to pick up and promote. Once it becomes popular, your site will benefit from it by traffic increase and higher ranks. Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, are also good places to build links, as these sites already have authority which will be transferred to you instantly if the content you publish is relevant to their users. So, choose your sites carefully and ensure your target audience is there. You can also promote your content on other channels, such as directory submissions, blogs, press releases sites and more. Be an authority, not a crowd pleasure To be an authority and get all the benefits that come with that status, you should focus on a niche and demonstrate your expertise to your readers. When people deem you worthy of their time and consider you to be the go-to resource for solutions to their problems, it’s when you will win the battle for page rank.