Web pages must satisfy two types of users: searchers and search engines. It can be hard to satisfy both because they desire different things. Search spiders visit pages with the express purpose of identifying key areas on the page and indexing it for a search engine. Human visitors are usually looking for specific content, and many times they scan quickly until they find it. The intents are very different, and that makes good web friendly content tricky to write.
How to Write Content for Searchers
Website content should persuade visitors to take action on a page by stressing the best features and promoting them. All pages should be focused and treated as though they were the only thing the visitor will see. Here are some tips for writing content for users:
Keep pages short with links to more information
Write pages between 250 to 500 words long
Use bold headings to break up white space and help users find what they are looking for.
Use bullets and numbering for easy scanning
Edit your grammar and typos.
How to Write Content for Search Engines
Your job is to interlace search phrases into the page content so that search engines rank your site for them. Since you have to use the search phrase several times on a page, it can seem be hard to do this without loosing the website style or seeming awkward. In many cases there will be more than one keyword phrase you will want to optimize for as well. Here are some helpful guidelines for writing keyword rich copy:
Keyword Approach. Focus on the primary search phrase first, and then alternate the other keywords throughout the page. It is very difficult to optimize for more than three search phrases per page, so strive to keep pages focused, and add more pages if more keywords are desired.
Length of Page Copy. Write about 250-350 words on each page. Search engines can easily discern page focus at this length.
Titles & Meta Tags: Page titles should be 60 characters long