Dec 8, 2008
Content importance in SEO
Be useful.
Okay, lesson learned, you can all go home now.
Well, it's not quite that easy is it? Actually, it is and it isn't. There are some legitimate web building skills you can use in order to make it easy for search engines to crawl your site, or for promoting links from other high-quality sites. However, at the end of the day, what matters to your site isn't really the search engine. What matters is users. In addition, what many web masters forget is that users are what matters to the search engine developers too.
When a user types a keyword in to a search engine, they're relying on the search engine to provide them not with popular links, but with useful content. If what they find in your site is unique or thoughtful, high quality, and actually relevant to their needs, they'll stay awhile. If they're web masters themselves, they'll link to your content. If they're bloggers, or “mavens” as Malcolm Gladwell calls them in The Tipping Point, they might promote your site's name in their articles or talk about it to their friends and colleagues. The more promotion you get, the more you become accepted as an authority in your field, and the more web masters will link to your site. Getting these high-quality links is one of the key technical methods of increasing your search engine page ranking.
So how do you get useful, relevant content onto your site? Clearly, this depends on your site's purpose, your users' needs, and your own constraints. The following are a few tools to have in your content building toolbox.
Expert Opinions
Interviewing experts is a time-tested journalism technique, updated for the blogging era by the use of email. If you're a blogger and a relevant expert or academic has published their email address, send them a polite request to answer a few questions for publication on your site. This provides one of the most surprisingly easy methods of generating new and unique content.
Structured Copy
If you must write copy that summarizes other sites, do so in a structure that is immediately clear and useful, and can become a familiar pattern to your site's users. If users know that they can always go to you and find a quick summary, followed by a thoughtful analysis or question, followed by a link bibliography, they will begin to trust and use you as an information filter. Web masters who are looking for content to link to will be more likely to use your site repeatedly.
Passion and Style
It's easy to get excited when other people are excited. Show a clear passion for your topic, and write it in a style that's appropriate to the user community you target. It is much easier to get a reputation as an authority, and to make valuable contacts in your field, if people can tell that you enjoy your work.
Okay, lesson learned, you can all go home now.
Well, it's not quite that easy is it? Actually, it is and it isn't. There are some legitimate web building skills you can use in order to make it easy for search engines to crawl your site, or for promoting links from other high-quality sites. However, at the end of the day, what matters to your site isn't really the search engine. What matters is users. In addition, what many web masters forget is that users are what matters to the search engine developers too.
When a user types a keyword in to a search engine, they're relying on the search engine to provide them not with popular links, but with useful content. If what they find in your site is unique or thoughtful, high quality, and actually relevant to their needs, they'll stay awhile. If they're web masters themselves, they'll link to your content. If they're bloggers, or “mavens” as Malcolm Gladwell calls them in The Tipping Point, they might promote your site's name in their articles or talk about it to their friends and colleagues. The more promotion you get, the more you become accepted as an authority in your field, and the more web masters will link to your site. Getting these high-quality links is one of the key technical methods of increasing your search engine page ranking.
So how do you get useful, relevant content onto your site? Clearly, this depends on your site's purpose, your users' needs, and your own constraints. The following are a few tools to have in your content building toolbox.
Expert Opinions
Interviewing experts is a time-tested journalism technique, updated for the blogging era by the use of email. If you're a blogger and a relevant expert or academic has published their email address, send them a polite request to answer a few questions for publication on your site. This provides one of the most surprisingly easy methods of generating new and unique content.
Structured Copy
If you must write copy that summarizes other sites, do so in a structure that is immediately clear and useful, and can become a familiar pattern to your site's users. If users know that they can always go to you and find a quick summary, followed by a thoughtful analysis or question, followed by a link bibliography, they will begin to trust and use you as an information filter. Web masters who are looking for content to link to will be more likely to use your site repeatedly.
Passion and Style
It's easy to get excited when other people are excited. Show a clear passion for your topic, and write it in a style that's appropriate to the user community you target. It is much easier to get a reputation as an authority, and to make valuable contacts in your field, if people can tell that you enjoy your work.
Labels: on_site_seo
