Content is NOT king!

[pdstein]

Anyone who has spent 2 weeks in the field of search engine marketing knows that when search engine representatives are asked, "What does your search engine look for?" they always reply with, "Quality content." But is that really the case?

First of all, let's understand the motivation behind the response. When a search engine rep is asked "What does your search engine look for?" they understand there are two main groups of people listening to the answer.

One group is search marketers. To them "What does your search engine look for?" means "What do I have to do to get my site to the top of the rankings?" Search engines strive for relevancy. They don't want search marketers manipulating the results to get their site to the top. So by telling search marketers they are looking for quality content, they are hoping search marketers will stop trying to use gimicks to get their site to move up in the rankings.

The other group listening to the search engine reps is the search engine users. To them "What does your search engine look for?" means "What can I expect to find at the top of the results when I use your search engine?" As search engines fight it out for market share, relevancy is the #1 thing people look for. Saying their search engine looks for quality content is telling search engine users they put relevant, quality sites at the top of the rankings.

Does anyone really think search engine reps are going to tell search users, "We put sites whose owners have spent hundreds of hours exchanging links with other sites at the top of our results even if their content is bad?" Or "We put sites that have a keyword density of X at the top of our results even if no one has ever heard of the site?" Obviously not. So let's all agree that "quality content" is going to be the company line, regardless of whether it's true or not.

Second, "quality content" is more or less a matter of opinion. Two human beings can read a web page and one might think it's quality content while the other thinks it's crap. If human beings can't agree on what constitutes quality content, how is a computer algorithm suposed to measure quality?

It's tough. So, algorithms look at quantitative, measurable aspects of a web page that tend to imply quality - inbound links and the "quality" of those links being the most prominent right now.

It's analogous to diagnosing an illness by looking at the symptoms. If you want to know if a person has the flu you check their temperature, ask if they have a headache, look for a runny nose, etc. The closer those symptoms resemble those of the typical flu sufferer, the higher confidence you have that that person has the flu even though you've never done a DNA test on the organisms floating around in their blood stream.

It's the same way with search engines. They are looking for symptoms of a quality site. The closer the observable, measurable symptoms of a site resemble those of previously observed quality sites, the higher confidence the search engine has in the quality of that site and the higher that site will rank in the search enging results.

As anyone who has tried to play hookie by faking an illness knows, symptoms can be manipulated. Just touch the thermometer to simulate the symptom of a fever. Eat a couple chili peppers to show signs of a runny nose and watery eyes. In the same way symptoms of quality content can be simulated by search marketers.

The bottom line: quality content is NOT king - the apperance of symptoms of quality content is king.

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pdstein is an ordinary guy who while consuming beer becomes capable of extraordinary random thoughts on search marketing.

[Dcrux]

Great post. And it sums up the SE position rather nicely. There might be one small point to add.

Many sites are not doing SE positioning for their health. Bad, or even fair content, doesn't convert to sales very well.

The point is cost ...and the more ineffective the content, the more you have to depend on SE gimmicks and SE companies. So let's all agree that "content isn't king" is going to be the company line of companies selling rank, regardless of whether it's true or not.

As guess what. The more vapid, ineffective, and interchangeable pages get, the less relevant search engines get. Google instinctively knows bad rank poisons the well -- a fact SE experts find inconvenient. Not to mention another inconvenient fact: good content generates linking without the hard work, or SEO expense.

True, everybody has a different idea of what good content is. But targeted traffic has to see certain things or they will leave. You can test content and headlines and see how long people stay, or not. You can see user defections in your web analytics, and your wallet. The ugly fact for the content camp: you actually have to target and understand your audience.

Something every sort of writer has had to come to terms with, from copywriter to information provider.

The message from the purveyors of raw traffic is predictable: more traffic. Make no mistake, high traffic low-conversion sales are not cost free, eating up bandwidth the client has to pay for.

As I've written in this section, not every "king" is a good one. Some deserve overthrow. So it is with bad content. Most content needs expensive and chronic SE gimmickry because it can't rank without it. You can see how this plays right to the content-isn't-king bottom line of SE firms. A more productive discussion might be to see how good content and good, targeted traffic, work to complement each other.

[dburdon]

PDstein,

a good summation. I would agree, content is not king. But it should be.

Unfortunately all the major engines use a short-cut to ascertain content. They automated their content analysis. Its the only way that makes economic sense in a vast and dynamic world linke the Internet. In implementing their short-cuts the engines have allowed people to manipulate the results.

Whatever technique -on page or off page - the engines come up, with people will attempt to manipulate the results. Just look at the hue and cry immediately after Jagger. Now everything's gone quiet. Do you think that's becuase the SEO community is satisfied with the status quo? Of course not. We're all out there trying to crack the code.

The value of a top organic ranking makes cracking the code a lucrative business.

[Faglork]

Originally Posted by DCrux

As I've written in this section, not every "king" is a good one. Some deserve overthrow. So it is with bad content. Most content needs expensive and chronic SE gimmickry because it can't rank without it. You can see how this plays right to the content-isn't-king bottom line of SE firms. A more productive discussion might be to see how good content and good, targeted traffic, work to complement each other.

Exactly ... very good point.

Additionally, "good" and "bad" content is NOT "more or less a matter of opinion". You can actually meter the success of good content - you just have to watch how your visitors behave after you improve the content. See
http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/
for an example.

Good content is content which generates ROI and does not detract from it. Whatever ROI may mean in a given case - it could spell "a better informed audience" as well (think consumer protection websites et al.). And mind you, we are not talking websites alone, on corporate intranets the quality of the content may save thousands of dollars as well.


faglork

[MsLeigh]

Content IS king, and I'll tell you why.

Links may get you high rankings, but your CONTENT sells your products. Your CONTENT answers the question that your customers are asking. Is your content giving the answers you want?

Yes, you were talking about search engines, but all the traffic in the world wouldn't lead to anything if you weren't getting what you wanted in the end.

So high quality content is king. Professional content by a professional writer, not that 'writer' you paid $2.00 for a keyword filled article. A good copy writer/SEO writer that can sell what you're trying to sell.

And that is what makes content king.

[DrTandem1]

With regards to Google's SERPs, no, content is not king. At least not directly. Google appears to deduce content from IBLs.

That being said, you can be #1 in your chosen SERP, but a lack of content or the ability of your visitors to find the content once they find your site is a deal breaker. No content, no sales.

I know of plenty of sites that are not found in the SERPs and do quite well with sales because of their content and products. How do people find them? Not through the SEs! They are found from traditional advertising and word-of-mouth.

Traditional internet marketing says traffic=sales. To a point, that is correct. No traffic will obviously get you no sales. However, the inverse is not true. It gives you the possibility of sales, but no content is about as bad as no traffic.

Furthermore, if your site takes forever to load, requires cutting-edge plug-ins, requires registration and has poor navigation, I don't care if it is #1 in the SERPs, your sales will be poor unless you have a hot widget that no one else has.

After all, the visitor is searching for CONTENT. Nothing is more annoying than going to a site that doesn't deliver what was expected.

[pdstein]

MsLeigh & Faglork, content IS king when it comes to conversions. Once a visitor is on your site it's content (and usability) that is going to turn him or her into a buyer. However, this topic about search engine rankings.

[Peaforabrain]

Yes, theres always an analogy, content is not a King but a Prince. I get the impression that all the other SE's go for page optimization whilst Google likes content, not necessarily good quality though. It especially likes lots of content and if you have ever competed with a big site such as Alibaba for keywords, you will know its difficult.

Big Article directories are the same and if you happen to compete with an article on an article site using the same keywords, the only way to beat it is to have thousends of incoming links. So with a new website, getting enough links is hard. Articles are the backdoor to SEO, you can promote your website and stand a good chance of beating the competition simply by submitting articles relevant to your subject.

Obviously the best way is to have lots of good quality content, lots of links and SEO pages. This comes with time if you work at it.

[Andilinks]

pdstein

You have indeed identified the SE company line and their rationale for it.

What you've neglected to say is that yours is a very good SE marketer's company line and your motivation for using it is much the same as the SE's. That is, to maximize profits by persuading your clients and potential clients.

Maximizing profits is a very good thing and I very much approve. :) However you may not always be creating wealth--sometimes maximizing profits means merely playing a zero sum game and transfering wealth. SE marketers usually don't care if they are creating wealth or transferring it, and often the search engine doesn't care either.

Those who don't care are just spam in the system. I don't want to appear overly moralistic, but I do think everyone should ask themselves this question: Am I creating wealth or just transferring it? Yes, I think SE marketers can create wealth by keeping the search engines honest. They also can engage in legal theft by stealing the best result from the searcher, I've seen it.

Andi

[jackson992]

One thing that hasn't mentioned is what constitutes content. Do I have long written articles on my site? No . I am an affiliate marketers and my conent is in the terms of what products I have listed, the prices and what store sells it.

[nashville]

It seems that it is really about 'balance' I agree that content alone is soley responsible for conversions but the challege is to play the SE games to get the traffic to then convert the visitor.

Most of the 'talk' on all this is because we humans seem to have the need to point at one or two things and say 'this is what we need'. And its just not that simple.

This reminds of talking about religion, it is very complex and not easy to understand but it is very real :-)

[DrTandem1]

Originally Posted by jackson992

One thing that hasn't mentioned is what constitutes content. Do I have long written articles on my site? No . I am an affiliate marketers and my conent is in the terms of what products I have listed, the prices and what store sells it.

Anything can be considered content. "Good" content is simply what satisfies your visitor's interest. If my site has the word "widget" repeated 10,000 times (spamming issues aside) on a page and have 1,000,000 IBLs with the anchor text of "widget," there is an excellent chance that my site will be #1 in Google for "widget." However, it is doubtful anyone will find the site of much value.

If my widget site tells more about the widgets, shows some images of widgets and offers a competitive price and a point of sale, I could be well below the fictitious widget site in the above paragraph in the SERPs, but my sales would probably be far superior.

Therefore, it is quality content that drives sales, not simply being #1 in Google. The best scenario. would be to #1 in the SERPs and #1 in content.

[Needabed]

I personally agree with this:

"good content generates linking without the hard work, or SEO expense".

Good" content is simply what satisfies your visitor's interest.

100%

the more relevant the better.

The problem is that with gimmicks you can still rank better by copying/rewriting the content of other sites... how can an algorithm prevent that?

[Andilinks]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

"Good" content is simply what satisfies your visitor's interest.

Exactly. What you consider to be "king" is dictated by your point of view. What is your objective, your motivation?

Originally Posted by pdstein

...the apperance of symptoms of quality content is king.

If you don't think content is king then why have a website? Why not just spam? Oh right, they're tossing people in jail for that now... BH SEM is still safe though. I think.

[aviator67]

There is another factor, equally important to content. It seems to be that obtaining a critical mass of all of the factors related to site popularity is necessary. Until this event happens, you will struggle to survive.

You have to have a good idea, something unique and different, that makes it relevant. But that's not enough, the idea has to be viral, people have to start telling other people about your site, independant of your own marketing efforts. It has to work well, a buggy site will constantly be working against your promotion efforts.

Lastly, there is an unknown factor that I'm afraid that I haven't found yet. It appears to be some 'internet deity' that allows all the pieces to come together, press releases begin to be picked up and re-published, people start writing about your site, etc. Only then does the whole thing take off.

I've watched del.icio.us appear and take off, to be acquired recently by Yahoo, while a utility that I maintain (http://www.sync2it.com) offering more power and flexability exist in relative obscurity. I don't know that del.icio.us advertised, or even promoted themselves all that much. I know it's not the gods, but sometimes it seems like it.

[maniactive]

Getting someone to visit your site from a search engine is no big deal (heck, you can always pay for it). But getting a visitor to keep coming back and to recommend the site to their friends...that's why content is king.

I just checked yesterday's stats on one of my sites: while one organic keyword phrase at Google elicited 147 visits to the site, 343 different organic keyword phrases each elicited only ONE visit to the site.

I'm not optimizing my site for these onesie, twosie, long tail searches. They happen as a result of having lots of content. It's content that people search for, and its content that people link to / bookmark / blog about when they find a page, an article, or a blog post that answers a question or otherwise fulfills some need.

Other "content is king" stats to look for: how many people bookmark your page and how many times they come back to your site within a week. So what if 1,000 people come to your site from a very popular search term? If you don't have quality content, your visitors/customers won't come back.

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by Andilinks

You have indeed identified the SE company line and their rationale for it.

What you've neglected to say is that yours is a very good SE marketer's company line and your motivation for using it is much the same as the SE's. That is, to maximize profits by persuading your clients and potential clients.

Except "content is NOT king" is not just a line to sell marketing services. It's true for the reasons I outlined in my original post. If you think it's just a sales line, please point out the flaws in the original argument.

Those who don't care are just spam in the system. I don't want to appear overly moralistic, but I do think everyone should ask themselves this question: Am I creating wealth or just transferring it? Yes, I think SE marketers can create wealth by keeping the search engines honest. They also can engage in legal theft by stealing the best result from the searcher, I've seen it.

I am not advocating trying to get bad sites to the top of the SERPs. The whole point of my original message was to point out what we all know - quality content does not always win in the SERPs. I'm just the messenger here. :)

[greeneagle]

Content value is ultimately defined by the visitor. One of our SEO clients is one of the oldest and best established General Merchandise Wholesale companies on the Net.

He will rcv apprx 8 Million page views this month with an asp.net site, pretty much containing nothing but popular general merchandise items on dynamically generated pages.

On the other hand he will also gain several thousand "save as favorites" (bookmarks) from visitors, quickly compounding revisits over time.

His SE generated traffic is down to about .5% now.

Ken

[incrediblehelp]

Authority will be King.

Developing a website that gives your end users everything that they want from your niche is the end goal. Getting links to get links is no the solution and creating content to create content is not the solution.

If creating a website that simply groups and compares the lowest priced products in an easy to search and find format is what you are looking to do then content could be less important. The purpose of the website itself is what creates the "authoritativeness" in the SE's eyes. Look at all the high ranking shopping search engines on all three SE's. MANY of those pages that rank high in the search engines don't have content. Of course the opposite can be true as well. You can find many examples where it appears content does have an effect on the ranking. Sure it plays a partial roll, but it is not the primary reason for the ranking. The overall value and Trust the website has earned is what counts. Having great content for the query is just a way to organize the data within the index, but not to judge what website ranks higher than another.

Whether you have content or not is not the point in ranking. Creating a website that makes the end user happy (which makes the search engine happy) is the point. Of course simply creating a great looking website is not enough, as we all know. You must develop some sort of PR (not page rank) campaign to let the world know that you are out there. This is where being the expert in your niche comes in or having the lowest priced product or service.

Some find it easier to let the world know by writing articles on the products and services that they offer on their website. Some find it easier to answer questions in niche forums (like WPW). Either way you letting the world know that you and your website provide value in the niche that you operate in. From there you get visitors to your website and they decide if it satisfactory. If the visitors like the website maybe he/she will post about it in their blog or website. Maybe they tell another person and then that person tells another person and so on. From the latest post on link building Matt Cutts is making it clear that Viral marketing is about the only way they want people to link to you. One way, natural links.

[Adam_S.]

Good content will only help you if people can actually get to it. Who's going to link to your quality content if they don't even know it exists?

Links are the King.

If you search “miserable failure” on Google the #1 site is Biography of President George Bush. If you search the copy on the homepage you’ll find that the term “miserable failure” does not even exist on the page. If content is king how can a site rank #1 for a term that doesn’t even exist on the page? Isn’t this telling us that content really isn’t king and that link popularity is really the reigning power?