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Text Block

Your Text Blocks contain your Body copy. This is where you "tell your story." Once your headline has done its job of pulling the reader into your copy, it's time to pick up the headline's thread and take it the rest of the way.

How Long Should a Page Be?

Your Keyword-Focused Content Pages are flexible works of "word-art." Provide the high quality information your visitors seek in a way that respects their time. Make the length "just right" for your target audience.

"Too short" will likely fail to engage. Write at least 300 words of content for each page (we recommend 400-600 words as "just right").

"Too long" can intimidate. In general, it's better to break one long page into two shorter pages with the same or related Specific Keywords (think "mini-site" within your TIER 2).

The Number of Blocks

Most pages can be completed in under 10 blocks and all can be done in less than 20. If you're using the block-by-block SiteBuilder properly, there is never a need to exceed 30 blocks.

Exceeding 30 blocks may also challenge your browser and RAM. If you don't have high-speed Internet access, a page with many blocks starts slowing down.

SBI! has a limit of 50 blocks, so you will not be able to use more than that.

Remember Both Audiences

As always, consider both kinds of readers... human and spider.

For your human readers...

Start your Body copy strongly, for two reasons...

1) Compel your pre-visitor to click on your Search Engine listing. What you write here (and your Headline) will appear in some SE search listings so it needs to do the job of a good Description.

2) Compel your page visitor to continue down the rest of your page to your income-generating links.

OVERdeliver great content in your Text Blocks. Establish the main benefits of reading this particular page right away. In short, answer the "what's in it for me" question that every visitor asks when arriving at a new page.

Create an enjoyable reading environment for your visitors... a friendly, informed tone, active verbs, short sentences, no more than 4 or 5 lines per paragraph, etc. (See Make Your Content PREsell! -- yes, you really can write well!).

On-Page Criteria for the Search Engines...

Think like a Search Engine. It is trying to figure out what this page is about. It starts this process by looking for certain "on-page" hooks or hints. We call these "on-page criteria."

The placements of your page's Specific Keyword (and/or its roots) in your Body copy are the "direct hooks" to the Search Engine. These hooks directly tell them what the page is about. After all, if "Anguilla beaches" does not appear on the page a few times, it could just as well be a page about "Szechuan restaurants."

Search Engines today are sophisticated at recognizing the topic of a page. So while they need enough direct hooks (your Specific Keyword and/or its root) to "get it," don't give them too many. They'll "feel" manipulated.

All the usual rules of good writing apply (see Make Your Content PREsell!). While writing your excellent content, use synonyms (ex., "Szechuan cuisine"), related words and phrases ("Kung Pao chicken") and General Keywords ("Chinese food")... all of which help the Search Engines realize what the topic of this page is about.

In the example just above, you can see how synonyms, related words and General Keywords all contribute to "Szechuan restaurants." The content is obviously not talking about "Anguilla beaches," right? Better still, this helps you rank not only for your Specific Keyword, but for other keywords, too (without even trying!).

And best of all, writing in this manner makes for "good reading" for your human reader. As always, you have to please both audiences. Luckily, both engines and humans want the same thing, great content. Keyword placement ("on-page criteria") is merely "packaging your topic" to make sure the engines "get it."

Off-page criteria (ex., inbound links) are important, too, of course, and growing in importance. But most individual Web pages don't get many (if any) inbound links, so your on-page "hooks" remain important. (Building an inbound links program and managing off-page criteria are not part of this discussion. SBI! makes that part simple, too, but that's for another day... DAY 7 of the Action Guide, supplemented by articles in the TNT HQ.)

Some Specifics

The nearer your Specific Keyword is to the beginning, the higher the engine scores it. So include your Specific Keyword in the opening sentence of your opening paragraph, if possible. Analyze It! will check to see if it occurs within the first 90 characters. You can place it a bit later if the page "reads" awkwardly.

Use the Specific Keyword early in your first Text Block and also in the closing paragraph of your last Text Block.

Then weave your Specific Keyword (and/or its root) throughout the rest of your text. This "scatter pattern" should look like an hourglass... more frequently at the top and bottom, and less frequently (but still present) in the middle of the page. Keep usage reasonable, though. The engines look for excessive use as a sign of "keyword spammers."

A good general guideline?

Include your Specific Keyword just a touch more than "good writing" might normally dictate... but not so often that it is obviously being over-used. Instead, mix in some common synonyms and related words of your Specific Keyword.

Start blending in your General Keywords, too, so that you can score for word combos (i.e., Specific Keyword + General Keyword). Go through your MKL and make a note of the General Keywords with the highest demand and good relevance to your Specific Keyword (i.e., the ones that a searcher is most likely to associate with your Specific Keyword). For example...

If your page is about "Anguilla beaches," then "Anguilla" and "Caribbean" would be good General Keywords, but "travel" is too general. You'll use "travel" without even trying, of course, in various parts of your site. On the other hand, "Caribbean," as a word related to Anguilla, will raise your relevance.

Bottom line? Proper Specific Keyword placement, together with smart selection and use of synonyms, related words and General Keywords will not only satisfy both the Search Engines and human visitors, it will increase the overall relevance of your page (and likely provide you with excellent ideas for content).

Tips

• See the "Best Way to Build a Page" article for how to use the block-by-block SiteBuilder most efficiently. Plan and compose your content in a simple Text Editor. Copy and paste the appropriate material into the Text Block.
• Create vertical "breathing space" between paragraphs by inserting two carriage returns (i.e., hit the Return key on your keyboard twice). SBI! interprets two carriage returns as a new paragraph. Experiment with this when you preview your page.





• There is no need to use several Text Blocks in a row. You can enter all the text into one and then add the next different type of block. For example, it might be a Graphic Block.
• Left align long copy. Short copy can be centered for effect, but use this sparingly.

• Add stop words (such as "an," "or," "and," "in," "of" -- just about any preposition or article) to longer, awkward-sounding Specific Keywords to improve readability. Search Engines generally skip over stop words, seeing the words separated by a stop word as "making" your Specific Keyword. For example, if "free download music MP3" is your Specific Keyword, you could use "free download of music in MP3 format " and other variations in your Body text.

  Add the stop words after running Analyze It! for the page. Once the page passes, add the stop words.

Optional Tips

• If you know HTML, you can insert code into a Text Block. See this TNT section for several articles on adding bold, italic, colored text, lists, non-English characters, and special characters.

  Support does not provide help with HTML issues. If you have problems, see this forum for help. You can also review this TNT article for some common errors and how to fix them.

• Always add HTML code carefully. For example, if your text looks weird (all bold, all a certain color, etc.), you have forgotten to close a tag.







• The block-by-block SiteBuilder is meant to be a training tool. It trains you, literally block by block, on how to build a page that both engines and humans will love. No other HTML editor/page-building tool gives you this all-important training, so using SBI!'s SiteBuilder is important for the inexperienced and those who may have bad habits.

  But once you are fully "trained" and understand what makes a good page, you may start to find SiteBuilder either clunky or too limited. That's normal for a "training wheels bicycle."

  While many SBIers love its simplicity, others want to move to a more full-bodied, flexible editor. If you are looking for that, we highly recommend you make the transition. There are hundreds of HTML editors from which to choose. Which one you use is not important, as long as you fully understand how to build an effective page. Ready to move to the HTML editor of your choice?...

  This TNT transition article will show you how.

  (Not sure if you should make the transition? Read this article.)

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