The Importance of Text on Your Website

Websites are made of many elements, but we're going to talk about text right now. Specifically, we are going to discuss why it is so important for your website, the different areas of text available, and the different types of text you can use. 

First, text is important on your website because it:

1. Tells your site viewers what you're about, what you offer, and how to contact you.
   
   
2. Gives search engines information telling them what each page is about. 

Images are great, but they can only give so much information. You can give actual descriptions and detail through text that would not be achievable otherwise. It is recommended to have at least 300-500 words per page. 

Next, there are different places on your website that you can add text.

• You need to add page titles and descriptions. Each title should be no longer than 50-60 characters, or they will be cut off in the search engine results page. Descriptions should be kept under 120 characters for the same reason. This text is important because it is the only thing people will be able to see about your websites when they type in a relevant search and your site comes up in the results. Make it informative and compelling. Make sure it is grammatically correct and that there are no errors. Every page on your website should have a clear and unique page title and description. If you have the same for multiple pages, bots will only index one of them. 
  
  
• You should also have text on each page. As we mentioned before, the standard is to have 300-500 words, delivered through meaningful content, on each page. This means that you should be adding your keywords, phrases, and relevant words through actual details and descriptions, as well as a call to action for your page visitors. Google is all about user experience, so tailor your content to the actual human interaction you will have on your site, not the bots that will crawl it. You should use Heading tags on your pages to provide structure. There are different levels of Heading text boxes. The most important it the H1 text box. This should serve as your page title. You should not have more than one H1 on a page, as this will cause a conflict for your SEO. The H1 should be the main title telling what this page is about. Next, there is the H2. This is a subheading for your main title and should give more detail. You may use more than one H2. The H3 text box is to be a sub-heading to your H2 box and will be the last "title" type text box to provide more information. After that, the bulk of your content should be delivered through normal text boxes. 
  
  
• Also, you should add text to your images. What this means is, you should add alt text to each image. This is a description of what the image shows and is helpful for many reasons. If for some reason your image fails to load, your alt text will provide a description of what should have appeared. Additionally, this is to enhance the accessibility of your website. Non-visual site visitors use programs that "read" the site, and if you have the proper alt text on your image, those users will still be able to know what that image is about. Lastly, search engine bots who crawl your website cannot fully see what a picture is about. Adding a description to your photo gives them the information they need and will increase the chance that this image will show up in Image search results. 
  
  
• For a brief moment, I would like to talk about it meta keywords. These are mostly obsolete as search engines largely ignore them these days; however, they don't negatively affect your SEO. So, you can add them to your page if you would like, but I would recommend spending too much time on them. 
  
  
  

In short, your text should be used to educate, describe, and inform.
Side note: One excellent way of delivering fresh detailed text is through a blog. 

The last thing I would like to mention regarding the text on your website is that it is important not only to have the text on your site, but to have it easily read and visible. Make sure to use a clear font, colors that contrast nicely with the background, and make sure to get rid of any spelling or grammar errors. This will make a world of difference to the professional look of your site.