A business that goes through the process of search engine optimisation is a business that knows the importance of website planning. SEO involves careful research, even more careful implementation, and careful plotting of results as the search engines take note of the changes.

Fresh content has been established as an important factor in a site’s ongoing SEO. It keeps the search engine spiders crawling through the site, it boosts the keyword density, it opens up the way for keyword adjustments as time goes by and perhaps most importantly it keeps users interested. The constant changes that new content creates on a site can bring in a lot of difficulties, too. Tiny, simple things such as spelling mistakes, bad grammar, formatting glitches and content style changes can build up as you add content over time.

Luckily, there is a handy tool for your ongoing content management. The best news is that it’s not an expensive piece of software. Nor is it new, so there are no worries about working out the bugs left over from the beta version. It is budget friendly as well, as it’s absolutely free. All it requires is a word processor, or perhaps just a pen and paper. It’s an old-fashioned checklist.

A checklist is an extremely handy tool when you want to ensure consistency and quality in your site’s content. Your checklist may grow as you use it, but the basic checklist should consist of:

1. Spellcheck
2. Read for meaning. This is the place to check that it all makes sense.
3. First paragraph check. The first paragraph needs to be punchy and grab attention.
4. Friendly tone and big words check. If the tone of the piece doesn’t fit, it may require a few simple changes such as using less formal language.
5. Format and code. Once the textual errors are cleaned up, prepare the content for publishing.
6. Embed links. It can help to make a note of good spots for hyperlinks when you read through the piece. Links are a great way to further your search engine optimisation by anchoring to a keyword within the text. It’s important to link to pages that are relevant to that keyword, though, so it can be worthwhile to plan ahead and include keywords for other pages.

Read through the content at least twice. The first time, it’s not a problem if you’re busy. You just want to make sure the content basically fits in with the rest of your site. This is often the point at which you’ll spot problems with tone, which tends to stand out on the first read. Further reading will help you spot other problems, working down the checklist as you go.

A lot of these problems are avoided if you consult a professional company for your fresh content, and often the level of involvement for your business is up to you. You can discuss your content needs with us at SEO Consult.

The great news for careful site owners is that there is a lot of rubbish on the net. This means that careful content will shine. A quick look at your competitors’ sites will give you an idea of the level your industry demands. Very little effort will get you ahead of the crowd in most cases. Keeping an eye on your content can really pay off.

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Tags: content, Keywords, Quality Content, Search Engine Optimisation, seo

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under SEO Copywriting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.