This post is part of a series where I go into detail about the items in the initial analysis I perform for any potential client, allowing them to better understand the pieces that need to be in place to improve their website’s SEO. Last week I talked about how to make changes to your website’s meta data; this week I’m going to talk about the importance of good content.

When I say “content,” I am talking about pictures, videos and written words – articles, blogs, etc. All of these pieces are important as far as user engagement is concerned: you want to have a website that is easy to navigate and full of unique information that is valuable to your potential visitors, and just having all text is not the way to achieve that. However, even if you deal primarily in photos or products where pictures are most important, you MUST have text on your website so that the search engines understand what’s on your page.

If you embed all of your information into pictures, there’s no way for the search engines to read it. The same is true with Flash, or videos.

In general, you should aim for at least 150-300 words of content on every page. It MUST be unique content. You cannot steal it from other websites, or copy and paste the same information from one page to the next. It must also accurately describe what’s on the page: the contact us page must have contact information; the about us page should talk about the company and the people behind it; a page called “Lego toys” should be about Lego toys. The better you can hone in on what the page is about, the more likely a search engine is to show that page to people looking for related information. If you have multiple products or services, consider having a separate page that describes each product or service.