How Important is Content for a Website?

The main factors that determine the success of a website are - Effective Search Engine Optimisation, Google PageRank and high quality content.

Search Engine Optimisation (popularly known as SEO) is a process of tweaking the meta tags (Title tag, Description tag, Keywords tag, Alt tag) and placing the keywords in the right positions and making the site search engine friendly so that the search engine spiders access all the pages of the website and index the site on to the search engine.

Google PageRank (PR) mainly depends on the link popularity. In other words PR depends on the number of other sites that link back to your site. The more the number of links that link back to your site the good the PR.

There is an interesting state with regards to Google, as Google is built upon the founders' (Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page) use of PageRank. PageRank checks for the incoming links as a type of "rank" or a "count" for the importance and relevance of the page. Google's algorithms give a great deal of importance on, inbound links in ranking pages for position in their search pages. In fact, Google will not keep a site in its index unless there is at least one inbound link.

Despite this, the "Content is King" saying persists in some circles. It is true that this line has become monotonous and is characterized by a thought, or claim, that anyone who participates in aggressive link building is in some way cheating the Google's algorithm.

The only long-term solution for a good search engine rank is quality content. It is very easy to edit using the strategic keywords as and when required. You do not have to be an expert to do it. Know the keywords and try using them in the content. But, one needs to take care that the content does not look foolish by using the keywords repeatedly. One needs to focus on addressing the needs of the reader/visitor. The content also helps in inviting the search engine spiders, as you just need to feed them with the right keywords.

Usually, search engine marketers cram the web pages with full of keywords and use small text at the bottom of the pages to create a good fodder for the spiders. The usability of the page or how readers want to view it is seldom given a thought. This is a good short-term strategy and many a times it can be considered as spam by many search engines and all the efforts are lost. One should always consider that the Spiders are always smart and it is difficult to fool them.

Let us take an example of a site's content which has too many spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. It looks flabby and a customer will think numerous times to give his / her email address or the credit card details. It hardly matters if your site ranks in search engines and has too much of traffic. But, at the end of the day sales matter to any Webmaster. The site needs to convert a visitor to a buyer. A buyer needs to visit the site again to buy more or refer the site to other friends. Good content serves to all readers - spiders, customers and referrals.

Let us take another example of a door-to-door salesman. The salesman travels all the way to your house and just wants to enter your house so that he is able to convince you to be his customer. The way he communicates matter a lot and that is the only way a salesman can create an impact. Fortunately, online the customer himself/herself comes your site with his/her own wish, spending his/her own time and internet. The site content needs to communicate to the reader in such a way so that the reader gets more inside the website or make him/her buy. Content is the thing that invites customers to go into the inner pages and retains their attention. It is the one and only means, which would bring customers to your website and turn leads into sales through all your advertising campaigns. One needs to hit right on the bull's eye when it comes to content. A Webmaster should not compromise when it comes to content.

High quality content signifies a high value to any reader and it the main criteria for the reader to judge your site and convince him/her to become a customer and a regular visitor. A good content should also be unique and should be updated regularly so that people will come back to your site often to see what is new.

The easiest way to update content regularly these days is to create a Blog. These are inexpensive and very simple to integrate into one's website. Search Engine marketers are rushing to add blog to their sites as they are proving to be very spider friendly. After all what the search engine spider wants to see is - what the searchers want - good, relevant and updated content.

How to write Quality Content?

The website visitors should have an easy time understanding of the flow of the website. If they have to search through multiple pages to find the information they are looking for will not be a second time visitors. Above that they will not stick to your website for long.

An average visitor usually takes about four to five seconds to decide to click on some inner link or button. A clear idea of what your site is about should be evident straight away, followed by easy navigation to other pages that display further topics in more detail.

Search engines love relevant content. Keyword relevancy is a very important component of SEO. The more relevant the content is to a specific search term, the more likely the page will rank at the top of search results for that search query.

Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes. Keyword Density refers to the overall density of a given keyword for a particular page and is extremely, extremely important for SEO strategy.

The more unrelated words (may be adjectives, articles and exclamation marks) that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down keyword density.

The content of a website forms an integral part in formulating an effective search engine optimization strategy. The content is the heart and soul of a website and is a breadwinner in accomplishing a top search engine position. If you want to build a web site let it have high-quality content with the key phrases at most of the places. Google will rank that site in the search result pages on the basis of the content. This is a combination of the words found in the title, the headings on the web page and the body of the text.

Finally, for search engine optimization, the content forms a constructive role in achieving top search engine rank apart from various other important factors like formatting of text, keyword density, keyword frequency, keyword positioning, keyword proximity and link popularity would add up in achieving a top search engine ranking.

So, high importance needs to be given to the content one has on the website apart from doing all or any of other things to promote the site either online or offline. Good Content converts your visitors into customers and helps in search engine ranking as well. If you do not do the business then you are losing the business to your competitor. Quality Content pages forces the visitors to act and re-act on the website. Increasing conversions is what it all matters in any business. If you take the time to write relevant content, and update regularly, you will have a better chance of people finding you than all the other tricks you could try combined for getting the top position in Search Engines. Search engines are becoming smarter day-by-day, they understand what people want to find and they are getting cleverer at it every day - this is good news!