Website Content Optimization
When your content stinks, though, your site is headed in the opposite direction. If you have content on your site that’s not professional, the search engine crawler will register this, and your ranking may drop lower and lower and you could possibly be delisted altogether.
How do you know if your content stinks or not? It’s mostly a game of finding the right combination of content types and consistent updates. But before you can even get to determining the right type of content, you need to create a content strategy.
Your content strategy is the plan by which you’ll infuse your site with the right types of content at the right times. It starts with determining how to reach your target audience. By now your target audience should be engraved on your forehead, but how you reach that audience is something entirely different. If your audience is teens, the language and method with which you’ll reach them will be different than if your audience is senior adults or stay-at-home moms, or even full-time professionals.
So what words and phrases will your target audience use to find your web site? Those are some of the keywords that you’ll be using in your content. Additional keywords may be discovered using some of the methods that have been covered in previous chapters.
Next, determine what users will benefit from visiting your site. Visitors click through a link looking for something. If you don’t provide some benefit, the users will click away nearly as fast as they found you. When determining what value you have to offer, don’t think in terms of your desire to bring users to your site, think in terms of what those users are seeking. What do they want?
There are several different types of content, and each type has its own implications:
Licensed Content: Licensed content is what you might buy from a content broker. For example, if you’re looking for a quick way to populate your site with articles, you might turn to a company like FreeSticky.com that offers many different articles you can use. The problem with this type of content is that it’s often repeated all over the Internet. You’re not the only one who will need to populate your site, and others will likely use some of the same services you do. Being used often doesn’t make the content less valuable, but it’s not going to rank as well with search engines because of the duplication.
Original Content: There are several types of original content. There’s the content you write and share with others for free. This is a good way to get links back to your site. You can use the content for a limited amount of time exclusively on your own site and then allow others to use it for nothing more than a link back to your site. This incoming link adds credibility to your site.
Another type of original content is that which is distributed freely by visitors to your site. This original content can take the form of comments on your site or forum message boards. This type of original content is an excellent addition to your SEO efforts, because it tends to be focused on a specific subject.
Some original content is exclusive to your site. This is content that you create, and the only place it appears is your web site. This is the most valuable type of content for your site, and it’s the type search engine crawlers like the best. Think of it as giving the crawler some variety in its diet. It gets tired of the same thing day in and day out, just like we do. The more original and exclusive content you can provide for a crawler, the better you’ll rank in search results. It also doesn’t hurt if that content has an appropriate number of keywords in it.
Dynamic Content: Dynamic content can be licensed or original. Blogs are the perfect example of dynamic content.
Source : SEO Bible, Wiley
When your content stinks, though, your site is headed in the opposite direction. If you have content on your site that’s not professional, the search engine crawler will register this, and your ranking may drop lower and lower and you could possibly be delisted altogether.How do you know if your content stinks or not? It’s mostly a game of finding the right combination of content types and consistent updates. But before you can even get to determining the right type of content, you need to create a content strategy.
Your content strategy is the plan by which you’ll infuse your site with the right types of content at the right times. It starts with determining how to reach your target audience. By now your target audience should be engraved on your forehead, but how you reach that audience is something entirely different. If your audience is teens, the language and method with which you’ll reach them will be different than if your audience is senior adults or stay-at-home moms, or even full-time professionals.
So what words and phrases will your target audience use to find your web site? Those are some of the keywords that you’ll be using in your content. Additional keywords may be discovered using some of the methods that have been covered in previous chapters.
Next, determine what users will benefit from visiting your site. Visitors click through a link looking for something. If you don’t provide some benefit, the users will click away nearly as fast as they found you. When determining what value you have to offer, don’t think in terms of your desire to bring users to your site, think in terms of what those users are seeking. What do they want?
There are several different types of content, and each type has its own implications:
Licensed Content: Licensed content is what you might buy from a content broker. For example, if you’re looking for a quick way to populate your site with articles, you might turn to a company like FreeSticky.com that offers many different articles you can use. The problem with this type of content is that it’s often repeated all over the Internet. You’re not the only one who will need to populate your site, and others will likely use some of the same services you do. Being used often doesn’t make the content less valuable, but it’s not going to rank as well with search engines because of the duplication.
Original Content: There are several types of original content. There’s the content you write and share with others for free. This is a good way to get links back to your site. You can use the content for a limited amount of time exclusively on your own site and then allow others to use it for nothing more than a link back to your site. This incoming link adds credibility to your site.
Another type of original content is that which is distributed freely by visitors to your site. This original content can take the form of comments on your site or forum message boards. This type of original content is an excellent addition to your SEO efforts, because it tends to be focused on a specific subject.
Some original content is exclusive to your site. This is content that you create, and the only place it appears is your web site. This is the most valuable type of content for your site, and it’s the type search engine crawlers like the best. Think of it as giving the crawler some variety in its diet. It gets tired of the same thing day in and day out, just like we do. The more original and exclusive content you can provide for a crawler, the better you’ll rank in search results. It also doesn’t hurt if that content has an appropriate number of keywords in it.
Dynamic Content: Dynamic content can be licensed or original. Blogs are the perfect example of dynamic content.
Source : SEO Bible, Wiley
