The Importance of Content in Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to talking about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there is certainly no shortage of topics and directions that one could take. There is an endless avalanche of tips, ideas, suggestions, strategies and tools that are available to help achieve your goals of top page rank in Google and the other search engines. However, no matter how many angles, how many secrets and silver bullets may be flaunted, the reality is that there is one essential aspect that can not be overlooked by anyone hoping for long lasting top positions in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages); that element is content.

Before getting into the specifics of why content is so important for good ranking, maybe it’s best to take a moment and make sure we’re clear on why good ranking is so important to begin with.

Search Traffic is King

Fact: Search is the second most common activity online, second only to email

Obviously, if you have made the decision to get your company or business on the web with a website, you want it to be found. There are a lot of different way to get your site in front of viewers eyes, but they are not all created equal.

For instance, you could go the paid traffic route, buying space within the search engines themselves (Google AdWords, that you find at the top and down the right side of the search results). Or you could buy banner advertising on sites that are related to your business (banner ads were the thing to do in the ’90′s, but… that was a long time ago).

The thing is, no form of paid traffic is going to get you the kind of exposure and create the inherent trust in the mind of a user the way showing up at the top of the organic (ie, not paid) results will. People have become blind to AdWords type advertising, just like they became blind to banner ads over 10 years ago. Back in 2006, 20-30% of all searchers on Google clicked on sponsored ads. Today that number is more like something between 2% and 5%.

So where do people click? In the ‘organic’ results. They figure that if Google (or whatever search engine they happen to be using) trusts a site enough to promote it to the top position, it have some pretty good content in it. And in reality, it most likely will have good content in it, which is why it’s showing up at the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

You see, Google’s success comes from being able to give users what they want; pertinent results for what they are searching for. What are people looking for? Information! Whether that be prices, product comparisons, the latest developments in the news or within an industry… no matter how you slice it, they are looking for information. And Google wants to deliver that information, but they need to vet it first; they need to make sure they are bringing back the best information they can for that user.

But how do they determine the best information to deliver? Ahh… now we get to the million dollar question! (billion dollar question? Multi-billion???)

The Google Algorithm

In some ways, you can think of Search Engines as the judges at a popularity contest who are trying to play match-maker for the user. If someone wants information about tabby cats, Google is going to bring back the articles that it likes the best about tabby cats, with its most favorite at #1, next most favorite at #2 and so on. (By the way, the difference in the chances of getting your site clicked on based on your position in the SERPs is quite remarkable. The first position gets 56% of the clicks, second gets about 13%, third about 10%, 4th about 4%. Beyond that, and onto the second page…. you can imagine the liklihood).

But what determines what is Big G’s favorite? How do you get into Google’s good graces? Content. Written content that delivers value.

What determines value? How much other people like the content, measured by means of links to that content.

You see, at the end of the day, no matter how many super smart people are working at Google, in the end Google is a machine. A massive equation. An algorithm. What it does is look for words, and then it makes associations between those words. As Brian Clark, the founder of Copyblogger and Scribe says, “Search engines work by keying in on the word patterns people are looking for and returning relevant content.”

It’s a kind of a matching game. If you’re searching for “tabby cats”, the search engine wants to find popular, well liked pages that talk about “tabby cats”. The more pertinent and popular the information about tabby cats, the better.

And what’s ‘pertinent’ to tabby cats? Well, that is determined by looking at loads of other content out there on the subject matter, and comparing commonalities. If the content on your site touches on many of those commonalities, it’s pertinent. If many other people have linked to your site about that information, that means it’s popular. BINGO! We have a winner!

But…

How pertinent and How popular do you need to be to get to the top of the SERPs? That depends on the competition. To be #1, you need to have to be the best. You’re going to need lots of good content on the subject matter on your site, and you need to have lots of other sites that Google recognizes as interested in the subject matter to be pointing at your site as the ‘go to’ site for that subject.

How do you get other sites that discuss the topic to point links to your site? It really comes down to 2 ways. First, if the content on your site is good enough, people interested on the topic will naturally want to link to it to provide value to their readers. Secondly, you can provide useful content to other sites about the subject matter in exchange for including a link back to your home site. It’s a great trade as they get quality content and you get a ‘vote’ in the popularity contest saying your site is one worth visiting.

Of course there are many other facets and details involved in proper SEO. In such a competitive field, it’s critical to have all the details in place if you want to succeed. However, the details without the foundation (ie, the content), is really useless.

You could have the best optimized site in the world as far as keyword research, SEO friendly URLs, title tags, alt tags, meta tags, css etc. But if you don’t have content, you’re lost. As one savvy online business person wrote,

“I can certainly run and operate my business with a website that has great content and no links. The converse statement cannot be made. In fact, even with a bunch of great links coming into crappy content – I still cant’ succeed. I may drive a lot of traffic, but when people arrive at the destination, they’re going to keep on going – so I have succeeded at nothing.”

For this reason we often recommend that when you embark on a new SEO effort, you should prepare by organizing at least 20 to 30 pieces of quality content. Approximately half will be used on your site, while the other half will be used externally, to generate links pointing back to your site. Where that content comes from is up to you. You can generate it yourself, or we can generate it for you with our team of writers. Obviously you know your business better than we do, but we know writing and SEO.

Oftentimes when we are hired, it’s because the business owner understands the importance and need for SEO work, but they don’t want to dig into the intricacies of it themselves (smart move; better to keep focused on your core business and let the SEO Specialist take care of these matters for you). Combining your industry and business knowledge with our specialized skills in SEO creates a powerful, synergistic combination. But knowledge without proper action and implementation is about as useful as a website without content.