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No matter what else you do, at the end of the day quality content is going to be the deciding factor as to who rates high in the rankings and who doesn’t. You can apply SEO techniques to spam all day long and it won’t do you a bit of good. Without quality, informative content nobody is going to want to visit or link to your site. Having said that we often here from SEO professionals who are unaware of the different types of content there are out there – it’s not just a text based world anymore – and how they can be used together to drive traffic, increase rank and generate profit for a website. In this article I am going to take you through the 12 types of content that is most often found on web sites and how each of them can help you in the world of SEO.
1 – Videos
A few years ago video was unheard of on the web, today thanks to sites like Youtube and Hulu video is everywhere. Broadband access means that people are looking for rich media, not just plain text anymore. People like to be able to “see” things, not just read about them – and studies have shown that people are more likely to watch a video than to read a lengthy text article. A well put together video can be a huge traffic draw to your site.
2 – Blog Posts
Blogs are dynamic, informative and most of all – fresh. They let you keep a constant stream of updated data flowing through your website. Blogs have become so popular that entire websites are composed of nothing more than blog posts. Blog content can be entertaining, educational, news or editorial based. The type you end up choosing is largely based on your objectives.
3 – News
News sites, to be effective, have to be “first to press” – you have to get the scoop on others. News sites are linked to and viewed more often than any other type of site, traditionally. If you are focusing in on news content remember that it’s a 24×7 venture – one where you are going to need quite a bit of fresh, unique content flowing through all the time.
4 – E-Books
E-Books are one way to send your authority level soaring. Though they are not the easiest to create (you can use outside ghost authors) they can be invaluable at bringing links and business to your site. Just remember to make the book relevant to your site.
5 – User Generated Content
Remember all that Web 2.0 buzz? It centers around user generated content and its one of the easiest way to get fresh, unique content on your site without you having to worry about it. Though you lose a little bit of editorial control, the benefits far outweigh any risks of letting your users speak up as long as you engage in a bit of moderation now and then.
6 – Widgets and Badges
Give people a reason to visit your site – send our widgets and badges that help deliver some of your content to other websites. For example, if you run a site that is dedicated to helping students finding the best college loans a great way to widgetize your content is to provide a widget that helps them calculate loan payments after graduation.
7 – Awards
Let’s face it, we all have big egos! Everyone loves to get the gold star. Recognize your star contributors on your site and those people who really do help your site stand out above the rest. You’ll be surprised how much a pat on the back can send visitors and links to your site!
8 – Contests
The word “free” sends people running in droves. However, as tempting as a contest may be you need to realize it’s a flurry of visitors and unless done right may not have a lasting effect on traffic stats to your site. Make the content relevant to your site and make it so that entrants have to participate in some fashion. In other words, make it so that those who take the time to visit your site and get value out of it are actually able to enter the contest.
9 – Images/Photos
Good quality images can make or break a site. Nobody is going to buy something from you if the image of what they are buying is fuzzy or poorly lit. If you are trying to sell something on your site then you need to make sure your images are up to snuff.
10 – Research
This one falls into the “authority” category again. The more authority you can build the more people who will link to you and visit your site. By publishing unique research that is relevant to your site you can attract potential customers and clients. When done properly, research can generate a huge swell of new visitors to your site.
11 – Don’t Just Sit There – Do Something Remarkable!
Don’t be another website that blends in with the others. Do something that sets you out from the others. Perhaps your site is dealing with weight loss – what better way to generate buzz and visitors then to create a special section that follows the life of a fictional client and spills the entire beans on their life – weight loss and all – for others to read and see!
12 – Create and Distribute Applications
A Facebook application, WordPress plugin or even a traditional piece of software can be a big draw for your site. It will help boost your perceived authority, increase awareness of your site and can help you generate new business.
We hope you could learn about some good tips when start a new online project. We recommend you visit our SEO FAQ and see more about search engine optimization.
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Chances are you have hundreds of them scattered across your sites or your client’s sites. Old pages filled with content that was written a year or more ago. Content that is still relevant and pulling in decent search engine rankings, but it’s never going to be in the top 5 because, well because it’s old! However, just because something is old doesn’t mean it can’t be used to help boost your rankings. Smart SEO companies know that sometimes the easiest way to rise in the rankings is to reuse, recycle and reword!
The good thing about quality content is that it’s pretty much always going to be relevant in some form or another unless it deals with cutting-edge products or events. Otherwise, content that provides valuable information has a habit of sticking around out there. I’ve had a piece I wrote about 5 years ago dealing with supermarket layouts still rank in the top 10 across all the major search engines.
The good thing about old content is that with a little bit of work (a lot less than developing totally new content) you can easily have your rankings move up a few notches and even break into the magic top 5. How? It’s simple:
- Update your old content. Sometimes just adding an update to old content can boost your rankings considerably.
- Re-work the content to be SEO friendly. Chances are if you wrote your content a few years ago it wasn’t taking advantage of modern SEO analysis. By rewriting content to fit modern SEO practices you can get a nice little bump.
- Re-use the URL. This works well if you run contests or have seasonal pages on your site. If you have a URL that ranks high, but is only used occasionally, find a way to use it more broadly. Don’t let a valuable ranking get away!
- Freshen up those links. Sites come and go, and chances are some of your older links have gone the way of the dodo bird.
Now that you have your content refreshed, you may find you run into some difficulty resubmitting it to content crawlers and engines. The problem is that they look at the URL and go “Woah, buddy, you already submitted this once!” The trick here is to use URL tricks like adding a “#” or a “&” sign to the end of the URL. They won’t do anything to your URL, but it will make it look like a totally new URL to most crawlers.
Sometimes the easiest way to boost rankings is to use what you already have. By taking some time each year for your sites and revamping content and links you can give yourself an instant boost in the rankings at very low cost. It’s just another SEO trick that you can use to help wow your clients and keep yourself and your sites near the top.
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I’m sure you know of someone, or seen pictures of people, who live in absolutely beautiful houses on the inside. We’re talking about marble floors, well-decorated rooms and spacious appointments throughout the house. Then you walk outside and it looks like a train wreck. Overgrown grass, lack of landscaping and paint on the house that is 20 years old. The type of house you’d drive right past without giving a second thought if you didn’t know much better. How many of you are aware that content layout follows this same type of behavior? You can have the best content in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you make it impossible to find and hard to read. People will just “drive right by”.
So how do we fix this? How can SEO work on the content presentation and make it user friendly and easy on the reader to not only find, but to read and hopefully take action? It all starts with great content, no doubt, but the following tips are ways to take that great content and help give it small, but measurable, boosts in the rankings.
First, look at your fonts. Some of us have a habit of using text that is just fine for younger eyes (since most of us tend to be younger), but which is impossible for older readers to see easily. If you are marketing products toward the over-40 crowd you have to design with them in mind.
I recommend sticking with a font such as Verdana with at least a 10pt font. Verdana has good spacing between the letters, is a little big larger than Arial, and the characters themselves are distinguishable. You should always stick to black lettering on a white background for maximum contrast and readability unless you have a darn good reason not to. Just think to yourself about all the potential customers that skip your site because they can’t see the text, or the contrast is impossible to read clearly.
Next, focus on the length. Notice how we write in short, succinct paragraphs? You should do the same. Nobody wants to read paragraphs that stretch on and on and on. Keep it simple and to the point for maximum reader digestibility. Studies show people comprehend and remember small pieces better. Keep the run-on sentences and 20-sentence paragraphs reserved for college papers!
Another practice you should be following when you do SEO is to make use of CSS. Not only does it help maintain consistency, but it also helps to make changes site-wide with a few keystrokes. At one time content length used to be an issue for search rankings, but thanks to widespread high speed access this is no longer a concern.
Now let’s talk about quality – I know you might think we talk about this too much, but quality content is the #1 thing you can do to get better rankings. Here is a list of things that I believe are cruicial:
- Keep it unique. Don’t re-use content and make sure anything you add can pass a service such as CopyScape. If your content isn’t unique you are going to suffer in the rankings.
- Unique page design. Don’t re-use the same HTML layout for site after site. The search engines are watching and take this into consideration.
- Unique titles and meta descriptions. Every page should have these. Your titles should be specific, but concise. Aim for 5 words.
- If you are re-publishing content you must add value to it. Don’t simple re-publish a review from Amazon and think the world will come running to your site. You must add value to it, otherwise why bother visiting your site when they can just visit Amazon?
Keep in mind that as I stated in the beginning, these ideas alone won’t help you much without first focusing in on your content. These ideas are like ingredients in a recipe – alone they don’t make much of anything, but put together they can make one heck of a delicious meal and well ranked site!
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What’s the “secret” to getting your site listed in the coveted top 10 spots in the search engines? Create outstanding content and get people to link to it. Pretty simple huh? Oh but if SEO was that simple. We all know that SEO can be one of those things you can spend weeks, even months on, and still not break into the top 10 on search. This is because that you can optimize your site for SEO until you are blue in the face, but until you get quality sites to link to you then you are almost invisible to the search engine folks.
Continue Reading: Keep Them Linking With Content That Screams Out – Link to Me!Related Posts:
What’s worse than having old content, or no content at all for search engine optimization? Duplicate content – the SEO killer! Search engines can penalize your site if it finds the same content on your site that they find at others – they may even stop indexing your pages altogether, a process that some people know all too well how hard it is to get re-indexed! Yet, if your site has user-generated content how do you stop them from posting the same information on your site that they have at ten different other sites?
Continue Reading: The SEO Killer: Duplicate Content!