Content is Key! If you want a website to generate back-links and have quality content that search engines love, be sure to make it readable by both people and search engines. Search engines are working to give people quality results. Thus, they are looking for sites with quality content. So, by building site content for people, not only are you getting back to basics, you are also creating a site search engines will love. So, your build sites for people and search engines.

When creating a new website or redesigning an existing site, there are four critical rules which should be followed to make your site successful, effective, functional, and loved by search engines.

1. Easy to Read

When building a website, the first thing you need to ensure is that your website is easy to read. When you write content, remember that most web site visitors don't read every word on a page - in fact, they only scan pages to find what they are looking for.

Break up Your Content

Break up your pages and use headers between major ideas so people scanning your site can find what they want quickly. Use important headers between each paragraph and major idea - this helps with SEO. Headers should be created with the H1 through H4 tags for SEO. Always use good writing structure and avoid long paragraphs that run on.

Color and Fonts

To help readability, use high contrast colors between font and background. Black text against a white background may seem stark, but it is very appealing to the eye. To make a website easy on the eyes, try an off-white background and a dark gray (almost black) text color.

Things to avoid with content color:

• Avoid vibrant background colors like purple or yellow. Such back colors make text difficult to read.

• Avoid using an image behind your text.

• Avoid using bright text colors on bright backgrounds.

Fonts Matter

One simple statement covers the font issue:

Simple fonts are the best; the more fancy the font, the harder it is to read.

Since many browsers only have the standard font set, use standard fonts. In reality, there is no "standard", but there are certain fonts that are installed on most browsers. These include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Times New Roman. Your readers will see something different than what you see if you use other fonts.

Standard Compliant Browser for Development

When developing and testing your site, use a standards compliant browser like FireFox. If you develop your site to be standards compliant, it will work in most browsers, including MS Internet Explorer (IE). It is recommended that you test your site using the latest and last browser versions of IE (IE7 and IE8). To run multiple versions of IE on the same machine, TredoSoft.com has a free installer that will install multiple versions of IE. It works great!

Keywords in Content

Of course, when writing content, not only should it be formatted to be people friendly, but also be search engine friendly. One way to make the subject of the content known to search engines is to use keywords that people will use when searching for your site. The textual content on your site should be related to the site itself – for example if you sell laptops you would use keywords such as Acer, Dell, HP, etc. Be sure to use keywords in your header tags, your first paragraph and throughout your text. The keyword density should be between 4% and 7% - but any more than that could first and foremost, be hard to read and still make sense and secondly, be considered spam by search engines and banned. Keywords should also be used in your TITLE tags and your Meta description.

2. Simplify Navigation

Menus and links make up the navigation that the visitor uses to get from page to page in a site. Always plan a site around how people will get from page to page. A visitor to your site should be able to get to what they want within three clicks of their mouse.

Multiple navigation points make it easy to find things. Repeat the top menu at the bottom. Also create a left or right menu.

Use links within your text to navigate to other areas on your site. You can create links so that they are good for search engine optimization (SEO). There are generally two ways to create links within your text:

1. The wrong way: "For search engine optimization procedure, click here."

2. The right way: "It is important to use good techniques for search engine optimization."

Using link text (anchor text) that describes what the link is about is the best way. Search engine web crawlers (programs that automatically index the contents of websites) visit your site, they "read" links. Spiders can index descriptive links into a subject or keyword category. Spiders have nothing to work with when reading a "click here" until it reaches the linked page.

This is Cross Linking - when writing your content use it as much as possible when it makes sense to do so.

3. Consistent Design

Be consistent - at most, one or two layouts should be used in your site design. As a reader browses your site, they should be able to get used to looking in the same place for your navigation, for your sub-navigation, and for your content. Nothing else need be said.

4. Lower Page Weight is Better

Page weight is the total size of a page on your site in bytes - code, text and images. Your site's page weight makes a big difference to your viewers. Lighter page weight is better for your readers because the page will download faster. The faster a page downloads, the faster they will get to the content.

What it Means to be Light

• No large images.

• Fewer images are better.

• Optimize images for the web at no more than 72 dpi

• Use as small an image dimension as possible for the given design.

• Make gradients horizontal or vertical (not diagonal) so that you can use a

small image "strip" and repeat it.

How "Heavy" Should a Web Page be?

Certain studies show that 64K is a good maximum webpage size. 64K is a maximum; however, it is still, in my opinion, really big; the smaller the page, the better. 25K is good, 15K is even better. There is a balance between design and function. It is a good idea to focus more on function for this is what will matter to the consumer.

Try putting pages on your web host server as you build your site so you can test it as you go. For pages online, you can test the page weight at www.quasarcr.com/pageweight/ to be sure you are on track.

Ways to make pages lighter:

• Use linked style sheets

• Use DIVs instead of TABLEs where possible

• Use simple repeating backgrounds for effect

Summary

Visitors to your website should be able to find what they are looking for within about three clicks. Search engines should be able to navigate easily through your site. Making a site easy to read with consistent page design, and easy to navigate will make it easy to find information. When people can find information, they are more likely to refer your site or link to it - which is exactly what you want to encourage. You are now on your way to building a readable and hopefully successful website that is loved by people and search engines alike.