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The importance of good content |
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Friday, 22 December 2006 |
Why do search engines like Google prefer certain sites over others ? Why do some web sites become popular within a user group ? Fortunately for us all, some of the answers to these questions lie not within some mystical black art, but can be found simply by applying a bit old fasioned common sense.
Content is King
A web site should provide something of use and of value to the web site visitor. Clearly your site should be well designed, be a great advert for your products and services, work like clock-work and, if you wish, make you look like a member of the Fortune 500. However, once a web user has located your site out of 900 million zillion other sites ( as you have mine -Thank you) what will encourage them to return?
The successful web sites of the future will be those that add value to the web users experience, that encourage people to tell their friends and collegues about them and that people want to link their sites to. But how ?
What content ?
Consider the knowledge that you have built up by running your business or doing your job. Whilst your desire to get on the web may primarily be to advertise your products or services (and look like General Electric at the same time), consider the knowledge and experience you have that could be useful for your web site visitors. Even if your visitor does not click on your "spend cash now!" icon, if they leave your site with knowledge that is of value to them, then you have taken a great leap towards web site success as well as planting a goodwill seed.
Keep it fresh - Google's win-win.
Whilst publishing content at the same level as a national broadsheet is both a waste of time and probably counter productive, leaving your web site unchanged for over 12 months is simply negligent. But it happens. The reason it happens is that many web sites are built using static html files that cannot be updated or changed simply by their owners, and their web designer wants £50 to change a page.
To compound our sorrow, Google has a clear dislike of web sites that remain static over a period of time. Everything else being equal, if your competitor is adding a 2 line news item to their site every 6 months and you do not, then in the Google ranking war i'm afraid your foe will appear ahead of you.
Google only exists to provide people with a useful list of links that match their search words. The only reason Google is worth x$billions is because it does this so well. The clever people from Stanford University who started Google, spend their days refining Google's search algorithm / equation to help it find the best sites. One small but important element of this algorithm when ranking sites is -
A site with fresh content > A site that has not been updated since Googles last visit.
Google sends out bit of search code (Google Bots) that crawl the web to find new sites and revisit old ones. This is how Google builds it's index of content throughout the web. If, when revisiting a site, Google see's that nothing has changed in the last 12 months (for example) then it will not to bother revisiting that site so frequently. If however, it sees new content, then it will revisit that site more often. All Google is trying to do is find the best sites for people (and make sure it's own records of information are up to date) . By keeping your site fresh, not only are you providing great content for web users, but you are being Google's friend and your ranking will be rewarded in return. A win win.
How do I keep my content fresh?
The majority of web sites are updated either with a knowledge of html and ftp to upload revised files, or by paying a web designer / friend to update them. This results in web sites never being updated. The answer to our problem lies in designing web sites that can be updated using nothing more than a web browser and a username and password - otherwise known as 'Content Management'.
Content Management ? - sounds expensive !
Developing a content management system (CMS) from scratch is beyond most budgets, however there are a number of opensource applications that can be downloaded freely and modified to an individual clients requirements.
The CMS that is the foundation for all sites build by CLICK2 is Mambo (http://www.mamboserver.com)
To conclude ...
The importance of having great, useful and free content on a web site is frequently over looked. It is a win-win game, since both your web site users and Google will reward you for contributing to a better World Wide Web. Your visitors will return to read your content, they will discuss your site with friends and collegues and they may even link their site to yours. Google continues to develop in it's quest to find the best content and please it's users. If you concentrate on preparing great content, Google will find it, and it will reward your efforts.
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