This is the third (and last) part of our summary article on the SEO site review session panel held by Matt Cutts and other important Google representatives. Keep reading for important tips and suggestions from that panel for improving your onsite SEO. At the end of this article, you'll find a link for downloading the tips from all three articles in checklist format.
Tip#29 : “Make sure there is indexable text-based content visible to Googlebot on your optimized page or website.”
This is one of the common mistakes made by SEOs. You need to remember the basics, and one of these is checking to see whether or not the text can be indexed. The best way to do this is to use a text browser, such as Lynx, to diagnose crawling-related issues.
If you are interested in learning more about Lynx and its uses for SEO, you can read the following tutorials:
Tip#30 : “Add substantial text to your content. For websites in which it seems difficult to add text to your content, implement 'user reviews and comments' to add more text to your site. Make sure your website has enabled the ability to add user comments. ”
This is one of the most useful suggestions ever made during the SEO site review session pertaining to onsite issues (i.e. lacking website content). So if you have a website which is designed to have less text on it (like a website full of images, flash videos, MP3 streamers, etc), why not allow user comments or reviews? In this way, when users add comments, you will gain valued, added content to your website.
This is very possible and feasible to do, but this technique has a number of potential problems. I've listed them (and some suggested solutions) below
1. If your website is not known, then you will never get user comments. This is particularly true for newly-launched websites that are still not receiving substantial enough traffic to drive users to comment.
Potential Solution: You can tap other sources of traffic, not only search engines. You can network with other interested friends on Facebook; with other related professionals in Linkedin; you can Twitter or maybe submit your material in Stumble Upon and other places if your content and services are newsworthy and worth publishing.
2. If you start receiving user comments, it might increase the chances of receiving spam.
Potential Solution: You need to enable comment moderation. And you might find more useful ways to reward quality/best comments on your website. Maybe you can have a dedicated page for them with links pointing to their own website (if it's related to your website).