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SEO and content

One of the most basic obstacles that any site can face is the lack of unique, compelling and good quality content. Good content needs to be planned, researched, relevant and have longevity. Good content also needs to be current, unique, interesting and memorable. By simply producing lots of content does not guarantee your website is going to be successful. Producing little or no content is not the answer either. The answer is to strike a balance between which means your site will stand out from the crowd. Optimising your sites for search engine verticals (e.g. travel, movies, images, blogs, live events etc.) can help draw in additional traffic that compliments the traffic originating from standard organic results. If you had to choose the one thing that would make or break your site, it would always most certainly be the same – content! Don’t be misguided into thinking that having more content will get you higher search engine rankings or more traffic.

Many factors have a hand in this. The best sites produce all kinds of content. Website content can be classified into two broad areas – short term content and long term content.

Short term content

When creating short term content you are creating content that is around the current internet buzz. Sites producing such content include blogs, forums, and news sites. Short-term content is important, as it aids webmasters by providing a freshness and relevancy boost to their websites. Many legitimate and unethical sites use this to their advantage. The trick when creating short-term content is to do it while the specific topic is still “hot.” This can be used to your advantage if you can anticipate any future buzz, as it means you will be a step ahead of your competition.

Long term content

Long term content is content that sticks. This is the type of content that people will bookmark and come back to revisit over and over again. Using this type of content means your content has a greater life span than short term content – its relevancy does not diminish over time. Long term content sites include websites acting as reference resources. An example would be Wikipedia. If you use Google to search for any word that appears in the English dictionary, chances are Google will provide among its search results a result from Wikipedia. The English dictionary does not change much over time making sites containing the English language dictionary definitions, such as Wikipedia, well positioned to receive steady traffic over time.

Content balance

Using both short and long term content offers advantages. Your line of business determines how much of your content short term or long term. If you are in the business of news or blogging then it is imperative you continuously produce new content. If you are providing technical information then it is always good to have a mix of new articles and technical reference articles, grouped into categories that are easily accessible from anywhere on your site.

Getting SEO support

For those just getting started with building an online presence, developing a successful SEO strategy can be a very difficult process. It is essential to look for reliable search engine optimisation consultants who can help you to get your business website to the top of the search engines in an ethical manner. You could even consider SEO training to help develop your knowledge in this area. Opace Technology Solutions are successful Birmingham Web Design and SEO consultants who study keywords to know which ones will work and which ones won’t. The higher the keyword search volume and the higher your website ranks in search engines, the more people will visit it. Over the next few weeks we will be covering a series of SEO topics in more depth. Please follow us @opaceweb on Twitter for information blog updates, and feel free to subscribe to our feed.