Make Those Informational Pages Work for You

An informational page should contain valuable, relevant content such that it can stand on its own. Informational pages really become small navigational Web sites. They discuss a particular topic in some detail; perhaps they summarize some content area of the Web site and then link users to that area of the Web site. Often, they discuss a concept or describe using the vernacular of the industry rather than that of the general public. There is absolutely no reason why this informational content can not be placed on an external domain name. When choosing a domain name for externally hosted informational pages, there is less of a requirement that the domain name be good, interesting or memorable. What is important is that the domain name contains the targeted keyword phrase.

Don't overlook the importance of naming the files and folders after keywords, too. This strategy is best when used sparingly and worst when overused. External domains name with content-rich informational pages are a valuable and important strategy to supplement a search engine positioning program, but they are not a search engine positioning program in and of themselves. Nothing can take the place of properly optimizing the existing Web site and ensuring that all leverage is realized from your actual Web site.

An informational page that your Web site hosts internally, or even one that is hosted externally should also have links to it from the main Web site. The mistake many make when building informational pages is to make them exist as islands: Nothing links to them. They only link to destination pages. All of the major search engines now consider link popularity as a component of their ranking algorithm. If a Web site has links to resources but not from other sites, it is unlikely to attain a high ranking on any competitive keyword. If your informational page is devoid of valuable content, nobody will want to link to it. If your informational page is rich with interesting and relevant content, others will establish links to the page and your ranking will rise.

Note that simply building a Web page containing the elements above is no guarantee that your informational page will be a winner. The page must have very simple HTML and certain keyword concentrations, or weight values, of your different targeted keyword phrase in order to ace the rankings.

Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative.

Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs.

Visit her site at: Turnkey Home Based Business.