The Art of SEO

Content Optimization

Content optimization relates to how the presentation and architecture of the text, image, and multimedia content on a page can be optimized for search engines. Many of these recommendations are second-order effects. Having the right formatting or display won’t boost your rankings directly, but through it, you’re more likely to earn links, get clicks, and eventually benefit in search rankings. If you regularly practice the techniques in this section, you’ll earn better consideration from the engines and from the human activities on the Web that influence their algorithms.

Content Structure

Because SEO has become such a holistic part of website improvement, it is no surprise that content formatting—the presentation, style, and layout choices you select for your content—is a part of the process. Choosing sans serif fonts such as Arial and Helvetica is a wise choice for the Web; Verdana in particular has received high praise from usability/readability experts, such as that which WebAIM offered in an article posted at http://www.webaim.org/techniques/fonts/.

Verdana is one of the most popular of the fonts designed for on-screen viewing. It has a simple, straightforward design, and the characters or glyphs are not easily confused. For example, the uppercase I and the lowercase L have unique shapes, unlike in Arial, in which the two glyphs may be easily confused (see Figure 6-22).

Figure 6-22. Arial versus Verdana font comparison

Another advantage of Verdana is the amount ...