subject: 5 reasons why great content is king when it comes to SEO [print this page] 5 reasons why great content is king when it comes to SEO
How important is quality of content when it comes to SEO? Should a great effort be devoted to content, or is building backlinks a more worthwhile expenditure of time and/or money? While ultimately this will be a balancing act that fluctuates from market to market somewhat, most serious marketers agree that quality of content should be given extremely high priority for SEO purposes.
Without further ado, here are the 5 top reasons why content is king:
1. Search engines are trying to evaluate the highest quality, most relevant sites for their searchers. This is the bottom line. They want quality and relevance for their users, and more often than not it behooves any website operator wishing to improve search engine rankings to oblige them.
2. Other people naturally want to link to great content, (providing a powerful endorsement in the process). The people who run Google are not idiots, and they can tell the difference between a popular website that gets a lot of natural links due to people liking the content, and one that the operator has artificially created a bunch of backlinks to. Which one do you think they will weigh more heavily? This is why many marketers believe in the concept of "link velocity" and favour the appearance of natural growth for SEO. It doesn't get any better than the genuine popularity and free backlinking you get from having top quality content.
3. More content means ranking for more keywords. For most sites, most of the search traffic is not coming from just one or two keywords, but from a great many "long tail", related search phrases. The more quality, original content you have, the more of these related keywords you will be ranking for.
4. Providing a quality experience for visitors is not only necessary for conversion, but can also affect ranking. Google is factoring in things like how long people stay on a given site, or whether visitors are coming back to click on more search results within seconds (indicating your site was not relevant or useful for them).
5. The updates Google has made both recently and through the years, have sent us a clear message that their efforts to improve the quality and relevancy of their search results will continue for years to come. Aiming for the highest quality content on your sites is the best strategy for long term SEO viability into the foreseeable future.
If you're going to hire someone for SEO, I recommend looking for a good agency in your local area. Just be sure to find one that recognizes the important role that quality and user experience plays. You can browse SEO services in your area with a search like: SEO agency London, (or wherever you are located).
