General Guidelines

• Minimum of 300 words (do not underestimate the impact of text content on a site's ranking AND conversion).
• Main keyword phrases at the top of the page in a header (an <h1> tag) - a good rule of thumb is to just use the META title as an <h1> at the top of the page.
• Body text should be positioned as high on the page as possible.
• Primary keyword phrases should appear within the first 5-7 words of paragraphs whenever practical.
  • For example, "Our catering company offers customized menus for weddings, corporate luncheons and private parties...", rather than "We specialize in creating customized menus for various events...".
• Keywords being targeted should be used about 2 to 3 times per 100 words of text on the page.  (2%-3% Keyword Density)

REMEMBER:  IF A SITE IS EXPECTED TO BE AMONG THE RESULTS FOR ANY TERM, THAT TERM BETTER BE USED SEVERAL TIMES THROUGHOUT THE TEXT INFORMATION ON THE PAGE.  While search engines clearly give a lot of weight to the words in the META title (as reviewed on the META Tags page), additional keywords/keyword phrases are created by including them multiple times within the page text.  Search engines determine for themselves what a page's true keywords are based largely on the text content on the page. 

Keyword Density
Having at least 300 words on a website page provides the opportunity to build proper keyword density.  Keyword density is the number of times your target keyword phrases appear in the text vs. the total number of words on the page.  3%-4% is generally considered optimal.  That means target keyword phrases should be repeated approximately 3-4 times within every 100 words of text.  Those recommendations can vary depending on the amount of competition for the terms, but a 3% keyword density is a solid starting point. 

Why Is Text Important?
Properly optimized websites help to lessen the need for traditional marketing tactics - like direct mail (which most small business owners today will tell you is expensive and not typically cost-effective for small businesses in general).  Well-written, keyword rich, relevant text copy helps motivated buyers find the site more easily, as well as increasing the likelihood that a visitor will convert to a paying customer once they do.  Period. 

How do I know they're "motivated"?  If they weren't motivated to find the information they need, they wouldn't be doing a keyword search in the first place.  For that reason, and a number of others, a website is a lot more likely to generate business than a direct mail piece or a business card.

Text Content - Not Just For The Search Engines
What happens once a site has achieved a good ranking for it's keyword terms?  Well, in theory the site will begin to experience increased traffic.  The text content of a site should welcome visitors, as well as create a sense of excitement about the product or service being advertised.  The text should provide a visitor with relevant information about the business, the products/services offered and why the business depicted on that site is a better choice than their competition.  

The text on the website may be the only opportunity to build a rapport with a potential customer.  It should illustrate the quality of the product or service, as well as any information that will help to differentiate the business from it's competitors.  Unlike a traditional sales situation - face-to-face or over the phone - the text on the website may be the only chance to provide a potential customer with a sales pitch.  Choose words carefully and provide as much information as possible to help answer any questions that might come up regarding the product, service, shipping, pricing, and quality...try to recreate in text what would happen during a verbal conversation.

Text is essential, not only to the site's ranking, but to whether or not the site generates any business once prospective customers get there.  Getting the traffic is step one, but getting that traffic to convert to incoming revenue is the ultimate goal - neither can be accomplished without well-written, robust, keyword-rich text content on each page of the site.  It doesn't matter of a site has 1,000 visitors a month if those visitors don't translate to incoming revenue.