SolveYourProblem
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Series
Content is King: Search Engines Look For It
You have heard it time and time again: ‘Content
is King’. Yet still people ignore the truth of this common-sense
phrase. People use the web to find information – it’s the
content of a page that is important to them, because that’s
why they’re there.
The
content of a page is the primary thing that a search
engine will look at when considering your site. The meta
tags and the hidden text that many people like to place on
their pages in order to draw search engines to their sites
is much less important to the search engine. Many search
engines don’t even consider meta tags any more. Don’t get
me wrong, meta tags are a necessity when optimizing, but
they are much less important than content.
Hidden
text is not only skipped over by most search engines,
it can give you serious problems with search engines. The
king of search engines, Google, will remove sites from its
index if they utilize hidden text. Hidden text is categorized
as text that is the same color (or similar color to) the
background or text that is the set as transparent using CSS.
When
people arrive at your site, one of two things will happen. They will either find something of interest and stay,
or they’ll turn around and leave. They make this decision
within seconds. You need to have things that people want
to read, or all your precious click-throughs will be for
nothing. If you can’t come up with something to put on the
front page of your site, hire a writer. Writers are there
to create reasons for people to stay. They get paid for a
reason, they are worth while.
You
can never have too much information – it’s a fact that
people want information. The web is great for information
because you can find so much out there with so little effort.
Hidden somewhere in all that information, you can be sure
there’s something that you’d love to find. Search engines
are there to help you uncover it.
You could take some of this information and tailor it to
your website’s needs, using bits and pieces that will be
easy to read and useful to your visitors. The more
interested in your website a visitor is, the more likely
that they’ll
stay a while, and come back some other time. You might even
see some money from them, sooner or later.
‘Borrowing’ content word-for-word isn’t the way to go, though,
because of copyright laws – but you can always create your
own content. Remember that the most valuable web content
is unique information that no-one can find elsewhere.
Another
great method for delivering content is to provide RSS
feeds from other sites straight onto your site. Many
sites i.e. the New York Times site will allow you to put
their RSS feeds onto your site. An RSS feed is basically
an online news bulletin. If you are using Internet Explorer
6.0 or lower you probably haven’t encountered RSS. If you
use FireFox or Opera for your web browser, you probably already
know how great RSS can be for personal use. Imagine having
all of that content available on your web site without having
to pay a writer!
When
selling products and services, make sure that you have
enough information about your product’s features. Include
everything anyone could ever want to know about your product.
If you are running an affiliate site, buy a few of the products
that you are selling and use them on a regular basis. This
will give you the opportunity to find out what their major
selling points are and allow you to make them into featured
products and provide high quality reviews.
Think of it as leading your reader for a walk through your
mind – arrange the site to help your readers see what you
see.
For example: a page on music, could lead to a page on rock
music, which in turn leads to one about the various forms
of music, which leads to a page on equipment, and so on and
on. Each page on the site can lead into the next, in a reasonable
progression of thought. Your content becomes not only new
but also fun to experience, as you make it easy for the reader
to understand where you’re coming from. Tell a story with
your pages.
