How much text do you add to your webpages?

[Andy]

In the kabonfootprint contest I think my site was failing to get above position 30+ due to the home page only being 5K Bytes in size and the top ranking site had a home page of 99K Bytes.

I'm not sure if 99 being 1 short of 100 is significant but I do thing 5K is much too small, so I added a lot more content to my home page to fatten it up.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Menard]

Keyword density?

Things being equal (like that's going to happen with Google ), if the number 1 site in the contest gets kabonfootprint in their page over 100 times, say compared to another page getting it in 10 times, wouldn't they be more likely to be returned earlier in Google searches?

Of course, they do have a dotcom which is probably working to their favor. I frankly think that if all things were equal (banklinks, PR, keyword density, etc.) the dotcom would be favored in the returns.

Do you think adding adsense to the page would make it more favorable for a higher listing; or is that allowed?

[Andy]

Of course, they do have a dotcom which is probably working to their favor. I frankly think that if all things were equal (banklinks, PR, keyword density, etc.) the dotcom would be favored in the returns.

Do you think adding adsense to the page would make it more favorable for a higher listing; or is that allowed?

Great points. It sucks to see the .com site stuck at #1.

Actually, I do plan to add Adsense to my site in all it's glory right near the end of the competition if it looks like I have no other ways to get a boost. It is fine in the rules last time I read them.

Maybe post a spam report about the dot com site too?  Last time I checked my home page update had not been indexed yet, it still shows 5K as the page size.

So early days. Anyway, anyone who links to my page and drove some traffic to my site will get a credit link on my home page once the compo is over 

[donecweb]

I don't think the actual size of the content is important but I do think the keyword density is along with the number of times the keywords are used in proper sentences. Example: If a page has 15k of text and uses it's keywords 10% of the time and another site has 30k of text and uses it's keywords 10% of the time then the 30k site will show higher in the search engines because it is showing more keywords.

[Menard]

I don't think the actual size of the content is important...

[donecweb]

Not for me but since you thought of it. Well it must be on your mind a lot.

[Andy]

I don't think the actual size of the content is important but I do think the keyword density is along with the number of times the keywords are used in proper sentences. Example: If a page has 15k of text and uses it's keywords 10% of the time and another site has 30k of text and uses it's keywords 10% of the time then the 30k site will show higher in the search engines because it is showing more keywords.

I doubt that this is a factor. You should focus on the title tag and initial content and write naturally, and not worry about density of any keywords. There are long-tail keywords that you will naturally get. The key thing is to create a themed multi-page site and build links to it from related blogs and social sites. I speak from experience of regularly posting articles to my sites and getting up to 100 or so visitors per day and getting page rank.

You can theorize all day long, but if you get no traffic and page rank, it means that what you are doing is not working to bring in human visitors to your site.

[proson]

well but is themed site necessary? e.g. kaboonfootprint what are the related blogs
or directories,  forums etc then?

[Andy]

Themed sites have many keywords related to the topic. Kabonfootprint was just one word not related to anything. It was themed with imaginary words such as kabonfootprint blog. You could also have a directory of kabonfootprint sites if you wanted. But if one page is about kabonfootprint, another is about wedding dresses and another is about ring tones, I don't think you will rank so well for just kabonfootprint.

For example, DMOZ is full of different topics so it doesn't rank well for searches on these various topics, but it does rank well for it's theme of "directory".

So if you build a new site, basing the pages on related keywords is the best approach to take if you want free traffic from search engines. And you can get suggestions of what words are related, directly from search term suggestion tools.

[donecweb]

I doubt that this is a factor. You should focus on the title tag and initial content and write naturally, and not worry about density of any keywords. 

My statement was about density only after the more important considerations of SEO like title tag, anchor text and other stuff. Also in reference to the title of this thread about how much text along with discussion of keyword density. Not as guidance to make keyword density as a high priority but rather as something to consider when all else is done and looking for a extra edge. I personally don't consider keyword density important and the amount of text should be enough to cover the topic but not run on and on just filling space.

[Andy]

The reason I doubt that keyword density is important is because of the time it would take a search engine to evaluate this on a case by case basis as searches are made. But they may do a check when they first discover your site to check how natural the content seems to be by evaluating the density of the keywords it thinks you are targeting.

This used to be one of the factors that people optimized for and it was evaluated by SEO tools such as WebPosition Gold which was banned by Google. So if your site has consistent keyword density, it could actually be a negative ranking factor indicating that your pages may not be naturally produced content.

I remember tips on specific percentages that you should aim for.

What I have found is that as long as you do basic optimization and not worry much about it, you will get traffic, even for competitive terms since there are so many variations of all the words that people type into search engines. For example, I have a site about credit cards and despite massive competition, it still gets a slice of the overall search engine traffic. So some of my credit card pages must rank well for various keywords.

[sryk]

One tip i can give you to check your website concerning content SEo etc is to consult a specialist. I know a software which can do the work for you. Also someone saying keyword density etc. All this can be done in one software. I have downloaded it too. its quite nice and working well. It monitors your website daily and tells you whats good and whats wrong. Nice huh?

The software is webceo.

Thanks

[Queen Bee]

One tip i can give you to check your website concerning content SEo etc is to consult a specialist. I know a software which can do the work for you. Also someone saying keyword density etc. All this can be done in one software. I have downloaded it too. its quite nice and working well. It monitors your website daily and tells you whats good and whats wrong. Nice huh?

I would not recommend the use of software as a first option. I think it's best to gain an understanding of SEO by reading and researching first. Software, like WebCEO, should be used for webmasters that have multiple sites and do not have the time to manually analyze each.

Consulting a specialist is fine, but it can be costly and not the most advantageous option for many webmasters.

[Andy]

Consulting a specialist is fine, but it can be costly and not the most advantageous option for many webmasters.

Certainly, webmasters are not the target customers of the SEO sharks but rather the businesses that outsource all their work such as developing them a web site and doing the online marketing.

Webmasters, will simply learn from free tutorials that are all over the web. SEO book.com is probably the best known one, although the actual book is not free.

Gaining a variety of authoritative links to your site seems to be the main priority for people in competitive niches. If you don't have much competition then you can get top results with just a few pages with keywords in the title text, body text and URLs, Then a link or 2 from established external sites. The easiest place to get these links from is blogs where you place a comment (ideally a dofollow blog). If they have a top-commenter feature, you can easily get a link from their home page by commenting enough to get in that list e.g. 4 comments.

Write an article for ezinearticles.com and that gives you another good link.

So that is a strategy to get your first 2 authoritative links.

The next one that worked well for me is to find a blogger blog with good ranking but maybe not many comments. Then submit a really helpful and detailed comment. If you are lucky, they will then be so pleased that they add you to their blog roll.

That's 3 good links to get you started.

Quality is probably better than quantity with regard to links I think.

The best possible links are those from inline text within an article published on a authority site. But these are hard to get unless you own the authority site 

More advanced techniques for attracting links involve link baiting where you try and get people naturally linking to your content in large numbers, offering free resources that people will recommend in say forum posts or providing templates, software, online tools, image hosting, emoticons etc.

[steve80]

Just create good content and write with some degree of keyword density but beware that google is more and more focusing on that strategy and it might hurt your ranking if you force the keyword density. Do not worry about the size of it.