You can read on this site and a million others all about the benefits of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). You’ll find books written about it, entire courses training you how to do it and people who make a full-time living from it – and none of them are wrong.
They all add value (well, most) in one way or another in the task of attracting visitors to your website. However, it’s very easy for website owners, designers, developers and all and sundry to get hung up on tags, descriptions, URL titles, keyword density analysis and all the other buzz words you’ll have read about
They’re all factors in how your website will be ranked by the major search engines – make no mistake about it, they all count in one way or another.
However, they all add up to pretty much nothing in comparison to the one thing YOU can do to a website to make it truly successful.
Content – this one little word that represents a thousand words, spoken on different days, every week of every month – that’s what makes the difference to where you rank amongst your competition.
Why content?
To understand why regular changing, valued and well-read content is the critical item to success you have to look at the ethic behind the worlds most important player – Google.
They’ve made it their mission to drive users to good content. They want anyone who uses their search engine to find the very best content possible – not the very best optimised site. They value a content-rich user experience, so why do so many developers and website owners see fit to completely ignore the goal that Google pursue and the one direct route to get to it?
If someone tells you they can get you No. 1 page position then you should be disappearing into the ether as fast as they will with your money. They’re liars – plain and simple.
Google changes the algorithms it uses to rank websites regularly, so it goes without saying that if your site is optimised in a certain way that when they change their way of ranking….well what is going to happen to that previously reasonable position you occupied? Bang. Dead in the water.
What is content?
Ahhh…the real question! Content is something that changes and is of value to the visitor to your site. If you think you’re going to put 50 pages of rubbish on your site on day one, then not change it for 6 months – well you may as well not bother.
The same applies to 50 pages of good content if you’ve no intention of keeping the site up to date. You’ll benefit more than from 50 pages of rubbish, but you’ll still be picked up as having nothing more than static pages.
Your content should be freely available, easily accessible, worthwhile to the public or those particularly interested in the field your website pertains to, well written, well laid out and timely.
So if you’re going out to see a client today and you’re not going to tell them that they’re going to have to put effort into this wonderful tool that is going to make them billionaires overnight – think again. You’re not telling them the truth and they’re going to hand you money for lying to them? How would you feel?
If you’re someone who has a failing website and is now thinking ‘well I haven’t got time for that’ – then you’re destined to waste your money. The internet and websites aren’t a quick fix to monetary gain or business expansion. It is a form of media that is no different from anything else in business – it needs effort.
Types of content
Please don’t be lulled into thinking that content means changing a title on your website once a week. Google isn’t that stupid.
Content can be a variety of things, all of which you should have taken time and effort to consider. Examples are:
1. News items (about your company, products or industry)
2. Articles of worth (informational, like this one!)
3. Reviews
4. Extended pages
News about your company or your field (or your clients field) is easy to find if you put the effort into it. What have you done recently? Have you new customers or products to tell the world about? Has your industry been impacted by new legislation or a trend? Tell people – write content about it.
Articles should ideally relate to your sector and be valued by visitors to your site – and they should be freely available to all without the need for subscription. Don’t just rip off other peoples content either – because then you’ll learn Google is a lot cleverer than you think and you’ll spend all that time copying others material for very little gain.
Reviews are very good – they’re genuine insights into something or someone for your visitors to get opinion from.
All of the above do something without you even realising it – they mention keywords and phrases appropriate to your company, naturally. Organic, free flowing and naturally spoken content is a gold mine. Google knows how it looks, reads it incredibly well (frighteningly so) and will deliver you visitors once it trusts you and your website.
Extended pages are something you’ll get with all of the above of course, but you should also expand your site content over time.
Which brings us nicely on to the next item.
Father Time
Before you shut this page down and open up Microsoft Word, sit through the night typing non-stop, then do the same for the next 3 weeks, uploading item after item….remember the golden rule here – Google isn’t stupid!
See, if you just batter your site with an onslaught of articles in a very short space of time you’ll get Googles attention – but their little robots will keep coming back. Next week, next month, in eight weeks time – all the time in fact. So if you just think you’ll fly up the rankings and stay there – forget it.
You need to write your content over a period of time and maintain your publishing.
Promotion
Don’t forget that the world doesn’t know about your new addiction to delivering good content. Google will find out and tell them, but you can help yourself by making use of social media.
Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Mixx and a plethora of other social media sites makes your life very easy in that respect. Open accounts and let their users know what you’ve been doing – because they’ll come along and visit your site. Google will notice that too. Remember, Google isn’t stupid…
Those sites also have offspring. Twittl, TweetMeMe and a mass of other ‘Aggregators’ (a clever word for a collection of various social media and news feeds all in one place) – and you should let them know what you’ve published too.
Before you know it, a whole range of social media sites will be picking up on your items without you doing a great deal about it (or not as much as you first did).
Remember
Google isn’t stupid! Are you sick of hearing it yet? Well we know for certain that a good two thirds of the people reading this will forget that and won’t keep their publishing up (even if they start it in the first place).
Patience is a virtue – and you’re going to need it. Don’t be put off by not getting results overnight. You should start to see progress after 6 weeks and then 3 months – if you don’t, you’re not doing enough or you’re not listening to what we’re saying properly.
It never stops – and that is the most important thing you’ll ever learn about publishing content. You can’t stop it. You must keep it going. It has to become a culture, habit, an addiction and a prerequisite to the very core of what your business does online.
So what do we want for telling you this? Nothing.
Oh, maybe we do. Yes, it’s time to learn one of the most valuable lessons about content – send it to others. Give them a link to this. Because, in months to come, you’ll be hoping people do the same. So, go on – follow our advice and tweet this, link to it, publish it somewhere else, or send it to a friend.
Come back in a year and tell us how you’ve got on – we’ll be genuinely interested to hear and we’ll publish your progress on here. After all, if we didn’t….think about it!
Okay, so we’ll give you a nudge in the right direction. We’ve already mentioned a few things in the body of this article, but here are some more ideas about the sort of content you might want to publish.
News
Employees – you have employees, make your site something that communicates changes in staff, company events, achievements, sales, awards, changes in direction, incentives, green policies, etc.
Articles
Pick a product or service that you offer. Examine it in detail – generically. Don’t go on about how much better you are than your competition because it’ll stand out like a sales pitch.
Generalise. Question and answer – do both in the same article.
Tell people what you think, what your opinion is (even if they don’t agree, the internet and your website is a fantastic forum for opinion sharing) and why you think what you do.
Is there something new on the horizon – pre-empt it. Discuss it and preview it before it is in the mainstream.
Google will pick up and it and by the time something is becoming popular – you’ll aready have it covered and Google will know you do.
Write an article on why you do something in the way you do.
It helps people see what you covet as values and what is important to your organisation or you as an individual.
Feedback
Write content that encourages feedback. Get opinion – you’re giving enough of it so it is only right you should encourage it back.
Think about it – it stimulates conversation and that in turn brings visitors.
Isn’t that why you started this?
Ask
Lastly, ask people what they want to see published. How obvious is it?
Use your site to find out what your visitors want to see – you’ll be surprised how many visitors will react given the opportunity to get involved.
We welcome all feedback – so drop us a line via our contact forms any time you want, or find us on Twitter (our mainstream social media tool during the day) – we look forward to speaking to you soon!
Oh, and yes – we’ll give you feedback if you want it!
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There are SEO tips, reports on the most searched for words, categories, phrases and pictures, statistics that need statistics written about them and an array of opinions that are intended to stir debate.
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