There is a new movement among search engine optimization companies towards a technique that is more effective than any other search engine promotion technique out there. This movement, however, isn’t toward a new technique but a re-emergence of an old one. So what is it? It’s called Quality Content!
Even though utilizing quality content to obtain top search engine rankings is no secret, it might be news to a lot of you out there, including many other search engine optimization firms.
A brief history: A few years back, as the profession of search engine marketing began to grow, fierce competition arose to achieve the coveted top search engine positions. Webmasters and optimizers soon found ways boost top rankings through title tags, keyword tags, description tags, comment tags, headings, hidden text, etc.
It wasn’t long before search engines began developing new ranking algorithms which were much more sophisticated. Once you could stuff keywords into any number of places to achieve top rankings, now however, stuffing doesn’t work, and many of the previously “important” tags are now considered to have little or no relevance at all.
The primary on-the-page factor search engines look for today is content. Sure you can still optimize your title, keyword and description tags, but these serve more to compliment the text that is on the page.
Quality page content lets the search engines accurately judge what your page is about and what search terms should be ranked. If you sell paper clips but never mention paper clips on your pages, you are telling the search engine that paper clips really are not all that important. You may have a picture of paper clips, and buttons allowing your viewers to order paper clip models PC-X35, PC-X43 and PC-Z71, but to the search engine all you have is an image and model numbers… still no mention of paper clips.
Its not just the search engines that want text, viewers do as well. Pictures please the eye–which is important–but quality content drives the viewers to take action. When writing content for your site, know your search terms and use them. Don’t be afraid of writing descriptive text about your paper clips. Tell the viewer why these paper clips are better than staples. Talk about the color of the paper clips and what materials the paper clips are made from. Ultimately, its the content that tells the visitor the difference between models PC-X35 and PC-Z71 or somebody else’s brand, and helps them understand which paper clip is the right one for their needs.
Professional site content should serve two goals: increase top search engine rankings and click-thru rates, and increase viewer responses to get them to take the action you desire. It doesn’t take a lot of text per page about 250 words each, but professionally written words should provide the increase in sales that you need.