Content is King or not King?

[adposter]

I have read topics about people saying that Content is King when it comes to Websites and others say that Content is not king when it comes to ranking. So my question is, where does the "Content is King" really fit in any website?

I mean in my opinion, Content is King when the contents of a website is being presented in a way it suppose to be and the products or services being given benefits the visitor or the customer and constantly updated to serve customers.

Other people say that Content is Not King because it lowers down their ranks on search engines. So I guess some people have really been led to the confusion of where does the term "Content is King" fit in. And I hope that anyone here who has an opinion about it can write it down and help others.

Thanks,
Jon

[thisisull]

Content brings us great Google indexing.
Try "Welly Hull" and we are first above the BBC (even).
Content brings us about 14K hits a day on a growing 400 plus pages (about 4 new ones every day) website from well over 50 countries.
But that doesn't guarantee any income.
That's the bit I haven't figured out yet.
Regards thisisull.

[SteveWebb]

Hi Jon,

In my opinion content is King. Websites should be written for consumers not search engines.

Website promotion through search engines requires tactics to achieve ranking. If the desired webpage needs promoting then consider tactics such as doorway pages or information rich pages.

Given the conversion of search engines to the pay per click model, promotion of any website needs to be done strategically to get the best value from your promotional efforts.

[Duncan Pollock]

Beyond doubt, content is king, but, ahem, he'd better be married to the queen of optimization.

You must write for the searcher; describe your produce or service as the Unique Selling Proposition it is (or at least had better be); and set things out in a logical and sensible progression. That will give you Content.
But you should also:
1. Create the right sort of metatags (which some search engines do use, despite Google's apparent practice of ignoring them).
2. Use a good Title (per an H1 tag or similar) for each of your webpages.
3. Sprinkle your text with the keywords that you expect searchers to use (and are therefore included in your metatags).
4. Incorporate links (reciprocal or not) that relate to your website (i.e. because either they're directories that list your site or they take the searcher to additional or complementary sources of information).
5. In general, employ the same designs and techniques that the present Top Ten sites for your keywords incorporate.
And this will give your Optimization.

The dust is still settling as far as we can tell regarding Google's Florida changes, but I don't think there's much doubt that success with them is increasingly going to be dependent upon both good content and a sensible application of SEO principles.

Duncan
PS. Allow me to say that I didn't know this before I joined WebProWorld forums, but that's what the ongoing postings have taught me!

[Shadows_Papa]

Content is king. Content sells, not SE position.
If you are #1 in every SE in the world, but your site, product and design stinks, I won't be back, and I won't buy, no matter HOW popular your site is.
I was recently looking for a mailing list manager for our email program. Wanted something where users could sign-up online to our list, double-opt-in. Something that was easy to use, etc.
I spent 4 weeks looking, using the search engines, especially Google. The firms I found supplying such software came up high in the search engines, but their web sites sucked (can I say that here??) They were not professional looking, sometimes things were "broken" and their content really stunk, poor grammar, spelling, etc. I never went back. Then, by accident, not by major search engine, I found a firm in Florida. Their site was IMPRESSIVE. It all worked, the content was good, their writing was good. I make contact with them, and their word and product was as great as their site, even though their site was not easy to find. I purchased their product, not only that, but I constantly guide people in their direction. Content rules. It's your site content, look, feel and personality that convinces me to buy, not your search engine ranking. Period.

[Mukul]

Hi,

Content is the king - I agree, but when it comes to business websites, Conversion is the Emperor. There is no point in having a lot of content if it wont sell your product and I dont mind having a complete flash website when I know I can get a very good conversion rate from it.

Poor search engine ranking can be supplemented by having paid listings but lack of a content that wont sell cannot be suppemented with anything.

I belive that the content should be aimed at conversion and not toward search engine listings. Later, when you have a good content then you can do your best to tweak it in order to rank well.

[dwilliams]

Great content is king but content for the sake of content is useless. It may help you in the short run but certainly not in the long. You need content that searchers can use. And that content needs to be continually updated and added to. The more new content you have the more spiders will come back to crawl you. Think of good content as spider food. Spiders love it. Human directories love it to. Give other web sites a reason to link to your good content. Incoming links are still used to one degree or another by all algorithms. You also need to keep that content optimized - keyword heavy (but not keyword stuffed!). Conversion is emperor? Sure, but you've got to get customers there first. And content is the one sure way to do it.

[thisisull]

I like your analogy that content is spider food, and its true the fresher the food the tastier, especially with news etc, but still there is bread and water content that retains its value. Maybe human stories do this. I like to think so as that’s our bread and butter.