Hip-Hop Beefs

It’s very easy to pick a website that’s been a ‘copy and paste’ job from a sales brochure or print ad. They are usually very long, wordy and difficult to read online. Often, these people have made the fatal mistake of not writing for the web.

Writing for the web is very different to that of traditional print media, because users don’t actually read the text - they scan it. To make your website easier to digest online, here are our top 4 tips on writing for the web:

TIP 1 -Users Don’t Read - They Scan
As mentioned earlier, users don’t read text on a webpage as they would from a newspaper, they scan it. Studies have shown that around 79 per cent of test users always scanned a page they came across with only 16 per cent reading it word by word. In order to make important text stand out, there are many formatting elements available including:

* Bolded Text
* Bulleted Lists
* Headings and Subheadings
* Typeface size

As a general guide, try and halve the word count of traditional text and include only one idea per paragraph as users will skip over any further information.

TIP 2 - Keep it Narrow
It’s common knowledge that the longer the text is horizontally, the less likely it is to be read. Newspapers have known this secret for years and continue to write articles with short column widths. The good news is, it’s easy to employ by using narrow columns supplemented with pictures etc. to fill up the remaining space.

TIP 3 - Important Text Above the Fold
What is ‘the fold’ some of you may be asking? The fold is the line that divides the page first visible to a visitor from the part she or he has to scroll to see. Of course this line will change depending on the users screen resolution, but studies show that most users are working with a resolution of 1024×768 or above.

Make sure your important ‘calls to action’ and links above the fold, with supplementary text following towards the end of the page.

TIP 4 - Don’t Forget Search Engines
Never forget that your content makes or breaks your search engine ranking. In a previous article, I covered my top 5 tips on how to write good content with search engines in mind, so make sure to employ these tips when writing your webpage copy.

A great way to boost your search engine ranking is to include relevant keywords and text on your website. But go about this the wrong way and you could find your entire website removed from the search engine index. Hidden text is one of the oldest spamming techniques used by search engine optimizers who try to artificially increase the keyword density of their web pages.

Keyword density refers to how many times a specific keyword is included on any web page. In order to maintain a good search engine ranking, website owners should include these keywords throughout the page while maintaining readability for the human visitor.

The ‘black hat’ tactic of hidden text attempts to increase keyword density by placing a large block of unreadable text on a web page. While unreadable to the human visitor, the resulting text is still scanned and picked-up by search engine spiders. A common technique for hiding text is to include it in the same or a similar color to the background of a page. The Wikipedia entry for ‘hidden text’ has an example of the practice which you can check out here.

Search engine spiders have long been aware of this technique and ensure web pages using this method are dropped from the search index. They may also penalize the entire site even if only one page contains hidden text - so watch out! The overwhelming message here is don’t use hidden text of any kind on your web pages; it will do you more harm than good.

Title tags are one of the oldest and most effective aspects of on-page search engine optimization. Your title tag is displayed as the main clickable link in search engine results and as such, has a considerable impact on how many people visit your website, as well as its ranking within search results.

The good news is, writing an effective title tag is easy and can have a dramatic impact on your search engine success. Below are 3 tips to get you started:

Title tags are one of the oldest and most effective aspects of on-page search engine optimization. Your title tag is displayed as the main clickable link in search engine results and as such, has a considerable impact on how many people visit your website, as well as its ranking within search results.

The good news is, writing an effective title tag is easy and can have a dramatic impact on your search engine success. Below are 3 tips to get you started:

Company Names & Title Tags
There is often a big debate about whether your company name or brand should feature prominently in the title tag. The deciding factor here is how valuable and important your brand name is. Unless your brand is very specific, an industry leader or well recognized in its field, it’s probably best to leave it out, or put it at the end at least. This may come as a shock to many people, but think about it; If you searched for ‘flower delivery service’ you’re much more likely to click on a listing titled “Flower Delivery Service” rather than “Brand Name.com”.

Different Titles for Different Pages
It’s no use having the same title tag for every page within your website, as it leaves search engine spiders and humans confused! Your title tag should be individual to each page and accurately describe what the page is about.

Title Tags and Specific Phrases
It’s essential to make sure your most important keywords are at the beginning of title tags, as search engine spiders may only read the first 80 characters. The aim here is to write a title tag that contains appropriate keywords while maintaining readability for the end user. There is no use stuffing your title tag with keywords that form a pile of mumbo-jumbo, as its unlikely anyone will actually click on your listing.

In summary, here is how to create effective title tags for your website:

1. Perform keyword analysis to uncover the most suitable keywords for your website
2. Create a short and sweet title tag that contains these keywords in a readable yet search engine friendly manner.
3. Repeat this process for all pages within your website

It might take a while to get used to, but once you have the hang of it, you should be able to cover your site in no time. Alternatively, if you would prefer to have your website professionally optimized, check out our Business Essentials package which features on-going website optimization including effective title tag creation.

It’s not often that Google gives out SEO tips and advice, but this latest piece comes straight from the horse’s mouth. Google have posted some helpful tips on how to write effective Meta description tags to help your ranking and click-through from search results.

The Meta description tag is placed in your webpage’s HTML code and is used by search engines as a 1-2 line summary of your pages content. An example of the current ineedhits Meta description tag can be seen below:

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