Where should optimized content go on the page?
David Rosam on Mar 31 2006 at 12:29 pm | Filed under: SEO copywriting, Search Engine Optimization
My last post talked about some some optimized copy that didn’t appear to be working because it was buried under a heap of HTML, right at the bottom of the page.
Today, I wonder if I’ve stumbled unwittingly into that hoary old question of where optimized copy should sit on the page. I’ve read all sorts of theories of page layout and where you should locate your key words.
Frankly, they’re barmy!
There’s a basic misunderstanding inherent in the kind of misguided advice I’ve seen - that optimized copy is there as a component of a web page concocted to leverage the search engines. Some people even argue that this chunk of copy should be placed on the left hand side of the page, at the end of Worthing Pier of somewhere else equally bizarre. Nope.
As I’ve said here before, optimized copy - SEO copywriting - must work equally for two audiences. People and search engines. That means all the content needs to be optimized on your chosen page or pages.
And, if you have the time or the budget, and you believe you have some excellent key phrases to target, all your pages should contain optimized content.
So where should your optimized content appear? Exactly where the page layout says it should! A properly constructed CSS/XHTML-based site, with careful handling of JavaScript and similar components, will let the search engine spiders have all the access they need to the content.
