Of course, the whole goal of the search engines’ ranking schemes is precisely to deliver good, relevant content to users and the mechanism for how search engines select and reward good, relevant content is essentially just a technical issue, though admittedly an extremely important technical issue
But even in purely technical, mechanistic, terms, web content affects search engine rankings in three ways:
1) inbound links
2) website mass
3) keyword optimization
1) Web Content and Inbound Links
Inbound links are the number-one factor in getting search engine rankings. They also yield plenty of traffic on their own and the importance of links is what has led many people to say that content is no longer important, but those people forget that content does play a big role in getting links in the first place:
* At the very least, good content will make potential link partners more comfortable linking to your site and no one wants to link to a link farm, splog, junk site, or even just an unprofessional-looking site
* Lots of good content gives other webmasters (and particularly bloggers) a reason to link to your site spontaneously without being asked
* You can allow other websites to post your content in exchange for a link back to your site
2) Web Content Mass
More web pages of content = more search engine traffic
Here’s why:
1) Adding pages to your site is like putting out extranets to catch surfers
2) Search engines see bigger websites as more prestigious and reliable
3) The more content you have, the more reasons you give other webmasters, particularly bloggers, to link to your site spontaneously, without being asked
3) Web Content Keyword Optimization
Keyword optimization used to be the most important step in SEO. Now it matters little in ranking for highly competitive keywords
Still, keyword optimization can help you get traffic from searches, not on competitive keywords. While you may never rank number 1 for “finance,” you may still show up tops for a search on “household finance rent federal tax deductions” and if you have that phrase somewhere in your content and such non-competitive searches make up a very large proportion of total web searches.
Web Content Keyword Optimization Checklist
There are four legs to keyword optimization:
* Research/selection
* Density
* Prominence
* Stemming/Variation
Keyword Research and Selection.
You need to identify keywords searched by your target audience and use tools such as those offered by WordTracker and Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture).
There are two big pitfalls to avoid:
* “Negative keywords” that look relevant but are not searched on by your target market. For example, “website copy” is a synonym for “website content,” but most people searching on “website copy” are looking for software that copies an entire website to the hard drive for offline browsing.
* Impossibly competitive keywords that you have no realistic chance of ranking high for them, and how do you know if a keyword is impossibly competitive? One rough measure is to look at the PageRank of the webpages currently ranking in the top three for that keyword. If the PageRank of those pages is much higher than the PageRank your site will likely have in the future, you'll probably never outrank those pages.
A pay-per-click campaign with Google Adwords of Yahoo! Search Marketing will help you to find which keywords are searched on by your target audience
Keyword Density
Keywords appear in the content the right number of times for search engines to recognize the page as relevant, but not so often that it looks like keyword stuffing, and the longer the content, the more times the keyword should appear.
Keyword Prominence:
Ke+ns.
Keyword Stemming/Keyword Variation.
* Using variations of the keyword will help ensure web pages appear relevant to the next generation of more sophisticated search engine algorithms.
* In the meantime, variations of popular keywords help your site appear for the “non-standard” searches on variations of the keyword.
There are three main types of keyword variations:
* Word-stem variations and a stem of a word is its base. For instance, “optimize” is the stem of “optimized.” Other stem variations of “optimize” include “optimizing,” “optimizer,” and “optimization.” You can also shuffle the component words of multiple-word keywords. Variations of “website content” would be “website content,” “web content,” “content for websites,” and “site content”).
Synonyms (such as “web page content,” “internet content,” or “writing for the web” for “website content”)
* Related terms (such as “internet,” “SEO” or “web page”)
For many people, the SEO side of content feels like a moot point, and you need content for your visitors even if no search engine spider ever notices. But every website budget, both money and time, is finite. If you’re ever choosing whether to invest in another link to please search engines or another page of content to make your visitors pleased, don’t forget: search engines still like content, too.
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