Let's talk about the Catalog Approach. You'll see it everywhere, websites that contain a link to just about everything they offer on one page. Their thinking goes along the lines of, "...well, I don't want to leave anyone out. If they come to my site, I want to make sure I have what they're looking for..." – I’m here to tell you that this way of thinking could not be further from the truth.

Here's why: There's an ancient rule that goes back to the very beginning of direct-marketing on the internet, taught by the richest, most legendary and well-respected internet marketers of all time... When you give your prospects too many choices, they become confused and aren't sure what to do next. Confused people never buy anything."

You may have spent a lot of time and money writing the most in depth and informative content on the Internet, but that does not mean it's automatically good for SEO. For instance you could have a 5000 word page all about London.... you may mention several attractions in London and rant about the fine restaurants and nightlife.... you may even say the queen lives there but if you never mention the word 'London', then you're stuck!! If for arguments sake the page really is about London Tourist Attractions, then you will want your page title to be 'London Tourist Attractions'.... your H1 element (highly recommended) would be the same. Ideally, you will use those words throughout your copy a handful of times... and maybe even include them in bold or italics to show search engines that those words are REALLY important in the scope of the page!

DO:

Stay Focused – this not only helps resolve the Catalog Approach problem, but also helps the search engines see your page as informative and relevant to a particular keyword phrase. Search engines index web pages, not web sites. It isn’t necessary to have everything you do and all your keywords on one page. Each page should be focused around a particular theme or keyword phrase. Optimizing each page of your site for different key terms increases the chances of one or more of your pages showing up in the SERP.

Keywords and phrases need to be positioned within the site's content in a strategic and search engine friendly format. Simply placing keywords in your site's content is not enough because the SE’s consider factors like frequency, prominence, relevance, and link text when listing pages in their index. There are software packages out there that calculate these factors and analyze your pages for you. However, that kind of software is usually used only by SEO’s or are too expensive and time consuming for many site owners to bother with. So, here are some tips for how you can apply these parameters yourself.

Frequency: This does not mean the more keywords the better. It means that your key phrase must appear a certain number of times against the total number of words used on the page. A good rule of thumb is to use your key phrase once for every 100 words.

Total Words: To figure out how many words you should use on your page, try mimicking the approximate number of words of a top ranking page. Take a look at the top 5 pages that show up when you search for your key term. Average out the total number of words used on your competitors pages and use that many words for your page.

Keyword Location: A keyword is given more relevance by an engine when it appears in the engine's "preferred" areas.

Prominence: This has to do with where in the “area” the keyword is placed. For example, placing your keyword in the Title area is good, but placing it closest to the beginning of the title is better. Generally, the closer to the front of the area you can place the keyword, the better.

Proximity: This refers to how close the words of a phrase appear together. For example, if you run a local pizza business and a searcher looks for Pizza in Houston, you may not show up in the results if your address is buried in your content. So in other words, using your address to drive local traffic would include the word Houston while your keyword might be Pizza. The closer those two words are to each other, the better.

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