Visitors and search engines love content-rich web sites, but just having a lot ofcontent on your web site is not enough. It all has to be relevant to a main topic witheach page or section of the web site having a specific theme (And yes, this includesany resource or links pages the site may have). Each page should have its own topicand content should not stray to a different topic.

If you are promoting your graphic design business and have a page on businesscard design, stay on the topic and refrain from using a page title such as "GraphicDesign company in Vancouver, Canada - business cards, logos, letterheads". Yourwant the business card design to be the most important key phrase.

There are two main reasons for content relevancy. The first is so that visitors havean easy time understanding the flow of your web site. Visitors who have to searchthrough multiple pages to find the information they're looking for won't be visitorsmuch longer. The average web site user takes about three seconds to decidewhether or not stay on a site. A clear idea of what your site is about should beapparent immediately, followed by easy navigation to other pages that displayfurther topics in more detail.

The second reason for keeping content relevant throughout your web site is forsearch engine algorithms. Keyword relevancy is an important part of search engineoptimization. The more relevant your web site's content is for a specific term, themore likely the site is to show up near the top of search results for the term.

Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio ofkey terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engineoptimization purposes. The more unrelated terms that are used consistentlythroughout the content will bring down the percentage of more importantkeywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire web site, not just oncertain pages.

Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any otherpages that you may not think are important to have optimized for search enginessuch as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some web sites havepages devoted to reciprocal links. There's nothing wrong with them unless you linkout to a lot of unrelated web sites. The keywords that are used in the anchor textand surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if theyare not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind thatthe links page counts as part of your web site as a whole.

Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of along list of irrelevant sites. This not only appeases search engines but your visitorsas well. And as mentioned before, both visitors and search engines should be keptin mind when creating web site content.

John Metzler is the co-creator of Abalone Designs, Inc. - http://www.abalone.ca, aSearch Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has been involved inweb design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designsinto one of the top SEO companies in the world.