When sitting down to write content for your website, the first step is to identify the keywords you’re targeting. This should be a pretty easy endeavor if you think about how your customers/audience would find you if they looked for you on Google. “Bridal salon dallas”? “Personalized stationery”?
The Rise of Hummingbird
Keyword density used to be a big deal in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), but those days are over. Keyword density is the percentage of occurrences of a keyword (or keyword phrase) appears on a web page, compared to the total number of words on that page. If you remember using the web back in the 1990s, you might have seen strings of keywords at the bottom of the page. Sometime those tricky web designers back then would even hide those keywords on the page by making the text the same color as the background. This classy technique was right up there with flashing text and spinning logos.
Since then, search engines, and particularly Google, have become a lot smarter. Keyword density isn’t even really a metric to judge a webpage anymore. Google’s answer to the problem of delivering the most relevant content is The answer, it seems, is to focus more on the user intent behind that query and get at exactly what it is the searcher is actually looking for. Hummingbird is the latest iteration of Google’s search engine architecture, and is generating more traffic for deeper pages (the long-tail curve).
Say you’re searching for Mexican food. It used to be that you would get a page of search results of the top Mexican chains… which wasn’t necessarily useful to you, if that chain didn’t happen to be near you. These days, with Hummingbird, Google not only knows your location, but also your brand preferences. If you searched for premium tequilas recently, you may get Blue Mesa or Iron Cactus in your search results instead of, say, Taco Bell. In equal measures, it’s frightening and incredibly useful.
So… Keyword Recommendations
For websites with very little content on the page, we do recommend that you use your top keywords in the little content you have: in the text on the page, in the page title, in the ALT tags of images, etc. But you want to mention them in a way that sounds like a normal human being. Keyword stuffing is bad news and Google will penalize you for it.
Rule of thumb: Go for the better user experience every time.
So if you’re a bridal salon on the web, it helps if you’re writing a blog that talks about, not just the lines of dresses you’re offering, but also profiles of incredible weddings, tips for planning a wedding, suggested playlists for your reception… and so on. Bonus points if that information you’re blogging about provides information that is relevant to your particular customer. That is, if you’re a bridal salon in Dallas, focus on profiling weddings that take place at Dallas venues—not just the big ones, but also unique spots that aren’t talked about in depth elsewhere. Talk about makeup and jewelry tips that are on trend in the unique culture of the Dallas woman. Talk about local bachelorette party and bridal shower hotspots. Provide content that you don’t find anywhere else.
If you have questions about how to write better text for your website, contact us! We’re here to help.
