Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Great Web Content Inspires Both Readers and Search Engines
Here's #5 of a 10-part series on the "The 10 Hallmarks of Great Web Content." Read the full white paper, or view all the blog posts in the series.
Hallmark of Great Web Content #5:
Great Web content is search-engine friendly--while communicating effectively.
Recently I've blogged about how marketers are being tempted to crank-out content to satisfy increasingly voracious search engines. At the end of the day, people, not search engine spiders,
are the ones reading your content. Market leaders know this, and place a premium on content that doesn't just rank, but communicates.
Search engine marketing specialist Todd Miechiels writes: “Companies everywhere want to throw money at search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) in hopes of getting their share of the new, less-costly-to-acquire customers that Internet marketing has promised.
“The truth is, without content—and I mean good content that clearly communicates, persuades and inspires—a good amount of search marketing dollars are wasted. A lot of companies get lazy on the content development side, which turns a pretty low risk marketing channel into a pretty sure bust.”
Also check out the advice of Aaron Wall in his article, “If People Hate Your Writing, Google Hates Your Website.” He writes, “Content without links only works if you operate in an undiscovered or uncompetitive niche. … If you point a few more quality links at a real content page, it will rank far better and be far more profitable than a hand-crafted page that was created exclusively for bots.”
In other words, it’s important for content to be spider-friendly—but that is a secondary objective. It’s far more crucial that your content is written for people and packaged for people.
For more hallmarks of great web content, read the white paper.
illustration credit
Labels: content marketing, Search Engine Marketing, ten hallmarks of great web content, web copy writing
Friday, December 11, 2009
Whither Web Content?
Since the story about AOL's pay-to-play model broke last week, several more stories in the blogosphere raise the question, "What's happening to web content?"
This post on the SEOmoz blog, "Great Content Equals Great Rankings, Right? Wrong." is followed by a long string of comments where quite a few SEO pros argue that content is not king--links are king; quality content doesn't drive traffic.
As a purveyor of quality content, I find this trend difficult to ignore but difficult to accept. Underneath the retweets of retweets and rehashes of aggregated blog posts, driving the unwieldy engine of social media, there must be content that people want to read.
(I'm reminded of the old story with the punchline: there must be a pony in here somewhere.)
Without quality content somewhere in the fray, the unwieldy engine will stop turning. (In fact, bloggers are above average in education and wealth; one might assume that many of them have something to say that's worthwhile--not simply laden with search keyphrases.)
Look at TV--the supply of programming includes a lot of crap, but also some ponies. In fact, there's a case to be made that at the high end, the bar is pushing higher. Yes, we have Bromance. But we also have Mad Men.
So my prediction for 2010 is remains optimistic for content. While the average marketer will continue on a downward trajectory, the leaders in 2010 will differentiate themselves by caring less about open rates and page ranks, and more about changing the game. They will be the ones who use content to carry big ideas and to create clever, memorable and useful content that gets read, remembered, shared, and appreciated.
This post on the SEOmoz blog, "Great Content Equals Great Rankings, Right? Wrong." is followed by a long string of comments where quite a few SEO pros argue that content is not king--links are king; quality content doesn't drive traffic.
HubSpot's blog post, "What Google's Launch of Real-Time Streaming Search Means For Marketers" paints a picture of a world where marketers generate content in real time to satisfy real-time demand. The blogger advises:
Keep working to transform your company website from stagnant pages into a mini-publishing house that produces timely, interesting content that your prospective customers are searching for right now, at this very moment, somewhere out there.She doesn't advise on how to manage the costs of running such a mini-publishing house. My hunch is that quality may suffer in the race to publish the next tweetable article.
As a purveyor of quality content, I find this trend difficult to ignore but difficult to accept. Underneath the retweets of retweets and rehashes of aggregated blog posts, driving the unwieldy engine of social media, there must be content that people want to read.
(I'm reminded of the old story with the punchline: there must be a pony in here somewhere.)
Without quality content somewhere in the fray, the unwieldy engine will stop turning. (In fact, bloggers are above average in education and wealth; one might assume that many of them have something to say that's worthwhile--not simply laden with search keyphrases.)
Look at TV--the supply of programming includes a lot of crap, but also some ponies. In fact, there's a case to be made that at the high end, the bar is pushing higher. Yes, we have Bromance. But we also have Mad Men.
So my prediction for 2010 is remains optimistic for content. While the average marketer will continue on a downward trajectory, the leaders in 2010 will differentiate themselves by caring less about open rates and page ranks, and more about changing the game. They will be the ones who use content to carry big ideas and to create clever, memorable and useful content that gets read, remembered, shared, and appreciated.
Labels: content marketing, Search Engine Marketing, thought leadership
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Poor Content = Big Time Wasted Search Marketing Dollars
By guest author Todd Miechiels, Internet Marketing Consultant
There’s a crisis out there in the internet marketing world, specifically in the area of search engine marketing (SEM). Companies everywhere are wanting to throw money at search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising in hopes of getting their share of the new, less-costly-to-acquire customers that internet marketing has promised.
The truth is, without content—and I mean good content that clearly communicates, persuades, and inspires—a good amount of search marketing dollars are wasted. A lot of companies get lazy on the content development side, which turns a pretty low risk marketing channel into a pretty sure bust.
Why? Because search marketing—particularly PPC advertising—only accelerates and magnifies what's already true about your message, offer, content, creative, etc. From the ever-important tiny little Google PPC ad copy, straight through to the landing page copy, to the position paper you toiled over for so long…if the content isn't good, you'll know right away when you take a look at the basic analytics (you do have basic analytics in place, don’t you?) People won't click your ad, won't stay on your landing page, won't fill out the form. Or, even worse, a lot of people will get their hands on that piece of content you were never very pleased with in the first place.
The big problem is that most search agencies aren't going to try and convince you that you need better content (although the good ones will). And the webmaster trying to optimize your site isn’t likely to think about the strategic consequences of less-than-stellar content.
Search marketing has become ultra-competitive, and content is a big factor. It takes a steady release of good, relevant content—preferably the kind of content that will create a viral word-of-mouth effect—to help ensure a successful campaign. My advice to my clients who want to jump into search marketing? Make sure you've got some killer content!
There’s a crisis out there in the internet marketing world, specifically in the area of search engine marketing (SEM). Companies everywhere are wanting to throw money at search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising in hopes of getting their share of the new, less-costly-to-acquire customers that internet marketing has promised.
The truth is, without content—and I mean good content that clearly communicates, persuades, and inspires—a good amount of search marketing dollars are wasted. A lot of companies get lazy on the content development side, which turns a pretty low risk marketing channel into a pretty sure bust.
Why? Because search marketing—particularly PPC advertising—only accelerates and magnifies what's already true about your message, offer, content, creative, etc. From the ever-important tiny little Google PPC ad copy, straight through to the landing page copy, to the position paper you toiled over for so long…if the content isn't good, you'll know right away when you take a look at the basic analytics (you do have basic analytics in place, don’t you?) People won't click your ad, won't stay on your landing page, won't fill out the form. Or, even worse, a lot of people will get their hands on that piece of content you were never very pleased with in the first place.
The big problem is that most search agencies aren't going to try and convince you that you need better content (although the good ones will). And the webmaster trying to optimize your site isn’t likely to think about the strategic consequences of less-than-stellar content.
Search marketing has become ultra-competitive, and content is a big factor. It takes a steady release of good, relevant content—preferably the kind of content that will create a viral word-of-mouth effect—to help ensure a successful campaign. My advice to my clients who want to jump into search marketing? Make sure you've got some killer content!
Labels: Search Engine Marketing
