Try to view the site as one of your customers would. Are there any questions that you have, once viewing your site? While preparing the content for your site, if you have product pictures, include these, but don't have just a full page of product pictures with no content. Also, include the prices of your products if you can. If you were going to a site searching for a certain product, chances are you will want to see exactly what it is you would like to buy, the price, and read the available information.

Ok, so how many pages will you need. It will be easy to say that a 5 page website will not be suffice. It is best to research your competition and see exactly how many pages they have and use this as a gauge. If you have a competitor that has 300 pages, it is going to be hard right off the bat writing up enough content, but have a long term plan to create new content on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. And as always keep your content fresh and up to date.

You always want to keep your text visible. Do not opt for any tricks to hide your content in any way. What the viewer sees, should be exactly what the search engine spiders see when they visit your site. If you choose the spammy way, then you are putting your online marketing campaign at risk, and this will set you back big time in the search engines and with your marketing budget.

The main point you will want to keep in mind that you should always continue to build relevant content for your site. Continue to expand your website and give the viewers what they are looking for. Search engines often perceive a site with a large number of pages on a topic or area to be more of an authoritative figure in their field, this is also in conjunction with good quality incoming links. Also, the more informative your site is, the better chance that people will want to link to you. So it ends up being a win-win situation!

Gerard Manning
Search Marketing Consultant
Manning Search Marketing

Related links:

Designing a Website - Avoiding Some Common Design Mistakes (Part One)
Designing a Website - Writing Content for your Website (Part Two)
Designing a Website - Finding a Reliable Hosting Company (Part Three)