These rules of content presentation can be put positively (rather than negatively):
It should be clear that the purpose of the site is to clearly present content.
Choose a name for the site, and titles and headers for the pages, that make it abundantly clear that the purpose of the site is to present content, and (as a general matter) what that content is.
The design of the site should serve the purpose of presenting content.
Site design should be intended to facilitate navigation and frame the content: nothing more, and nothing less.
Specific content items and subject areas should be easy to find.
Provide multiple mechanisms for finding things: index pages, search boxes, site maps, subject areas, and so on.
Type should be legible.
Be careful to choose a readable font, in a large enough size, and background and foreground color combinations that are easy on the eyes. It's hard to go wrong with black type on a white background. The reversewhite on blackis hard on the eyes, and some combinations (for example, dark blue on lighter blue, are essentially unreadable).
Keep graphics simple.
For example, avoid animations and other splashy images.
Figure 1-3 shows Braintique.com , http://www.braintique.com, a site designed as a content vehicle, following these rules of content presentation.
As it happens, following the rules of content presentation I've outlined will serve you well with search engine placement (see Chapter 3). But that's not the point of these suggestions here. The point is usefulness and transparency to site users. If viable content is presented in an accessible fashion, then indeed "they will come."
If you are targeting your content specifically for Google's AdSense program (or a competitive contextual engine), you should also bear in mind the following:
· AdSense can't interpret images (except using captions, the value of alt attributed in the tag, and surrounding text), so keep images to a minimum.
· You are likely to get more relevant ads if you keep each page to a single subject (and move tangential subject matters to different pages).
· Key concepts, words, and phrases should be clear by glancing at a page (see Chapter 3 for information about how to use these keywords and phrases to optimize your pages for AdSense, Google, and other search engines).
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