Within the webmaster world there are many
different interpretions on what exactly is good content for a website.
Some think that they can determine good content when they see it. But
there is not only a difference between good and bad content. There is
also a difference in between useful and useless content.
Useful Content:
Do you really know good content when you see it?
The internet is a huge playground with an endless number of websites and
pages. I would really love to say, that most of these sites and webpages
do provide useful content. But as a matter of fact the vast majority of
websites in the internet contains what I would call useless content. But
how can we really distinguish useful content from rubbish? How can we
make sure, as a webmaster or site owner, that our website and every
single webpage within it really contains the most useful content
possible. Content that search engine spiders as well as the human
visitors to our website will love to use and read? What makes the
difference?
1. Have someone who is familiar with
your target audience or target market write the content!
It is possible to research any subject or topic
you like in order to get the material to write quality content on the
subject. But you may know best, that the very best and most useful
content always comes from people who are familar with the topic and are
good in writing proper articles as well. If you run a website about home
car repair, have an expert editor to do so. Get somebody out of the
profession. A hobby car repair guy or maybe a retired one, but who is
still up to date and familiar with the latest car models. This expert
cannot only write the website articles upon the subject but he can also
answer questions raised in the forums or a FAQ (frequently asked
questions) section of your car repair homepage.
Thus, you do not only have well written, useful
and very unique website content, but also a fast growing, respected
forum that automatically creates even more content for your website for
free. As you have an expert on the subject not only monitoring the forum
but answering questions, deleting spammy entries or writing posts about
interesting issues himself, word of mouth will slowly but surely spread
and your forum will become an automatic source of fresh useful content
as well as a magnet for repeated visitors to your website.
2. Long articles with opimized
keyword selection and keyword density!
Whilst longer articles require for more work and
input, they are usually better for search engine ranking. You can write
articles with 300 words, no problem. But it is better to have 400 to 600
words in order to achieve a good rating by search engine spiders and
human page visitors. The longer, the better, as long as you find
interesting things to write about. Do not get boring. Basically there is
no limit to the maximum length of your article. As a rule of thumb you
can say, that when it comes to more than 1000 words, youīd better split
it into 2 different parts or even create a series out of the subject.
Remember in the internet people are looking for information, but as they
are reading it in front of their computer screen, articles being too
long can also start getting a little exhausting to them.
Generally, the longer an article is, the more
keywords you can fit into it. The major search engines like Google,
Yahoo or MSN Search today all have content algorithms, where a certain
number of words are required for even have the page taken into
conideration for a listing. A great thing about writing and publishing
articles is that search engines with more advanced spiders will take all
the keywords within the article text into consideration, not only the
keywords mentioned in the meta tags.
Therefore the longer the article with a great
subject related range and density of keywords within it, the better it
is. Avoid keyword stuffing and grammaticaly unproper pages. Also look
for spelling errors as Google seems to start spell checking website
content and is ranking pages with lotīs of spelling errors lower than
others (which seems to be a correct and welcome measure corresponding to
their content quality guidlines). Keyword stuffing is the unnatural
overuse of keywords and keyword variations within a text. This will not
only scare page visitors away as the text will not appear very readable
and reputable to them, but may also raise red flags in the search engine
spiders whilst they are examining the content of your page.
The search engine spiders today have some tools to
examine for correct grammar and spelling as well as keyword spamming in
order to filter out what we have mentioned above. And they are getting
better and better in doing so. Always remember: Pages that got trapped
by their content filters, are useless pages! Useless for the search
engines, useless for your visitors and useless for yourself, as they are
not going to bring you any page visits, profits or reputation. They will
be just a waste of time and money.
So make sure your page and page content is useful.
Is your content unique and informative for the visitors of your website?
Is it dedicated and specialised to the main topic of your page, fitting
into what it is all about? If you read the article, imagine you are a
page visitor. Would you like it? Is it worth reading and is it easy to
read? Look for correct grammar and spelling. Not only modern search
engine spiders will punish you for too many grammar and spelling errors,
also your visitors will get a bad impression of your professionality.
Do use important keywords repeatedly and in
different variations within the text. The more to the top of it, the
better. But be careful not to overplay. As a rule of thumb you can
imagine you are a pupil and have to write a composition test in school.
If your teacher says: Very good article, however you have used or
repeated some words within it A LITTLE too often, - than this is what is
really perfect for your keyword density.
Another good thing about writing and publishing
articles is that your page will not only get listed for the keywords you
have optimized it for. No. The spiders will also catch up different
keywords and phrases out of your article, where you didnīt even think
about and will rank your page for them somewhere within their search
result pages. I have already created pages, that are ranking under top 5
positions on Google for keywords I did not even think about when
creating these pages. Thus I receive hundreds of additional page views
every day by this very beneficiary side effect.
