Why Content matters, but site owners don't.

Publication Date: 2007-01-24

Article category: Web Site Promotion

Behind the mind of Google, or why content matters.

I love these ads. Another one is "Submit your web site automatically to hundreds of Directories with a single click". or "We guarantee to get your site to the top of Google!". I like to put them in with the ads found in the back of Sunday supplements promising cures for baldness, easy weight loss or get rich quick.

The Devil, as always is in the detail. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they will do what they say (ok, maybe not the cure for baldness), but it's the ambiguity that concerns me. After all driving thousands of visitors to your site is not that hard. A few ads along the line of "Free Money" or "Live Sex" should do the trick. But are they the visitors you want? Will they buy your product (if you're a money launderer or pornographer, quite possibly)? will they come back? If not then they are simply taking up your server time, ramping up your bandwidth bills and quite possibly costing YOU money.

So if you need a few more of the right sort of visitor what do you do? Well first of all you need a simple home truth;

As a web site owner, Google does not care about you.

Shocking isn't it? After all the hard work you put into your site, there is no sign of any appreciation. In fact due to what is called the Google Sandbox effect, Google may even penalise your site for being new.

The reason is simple, Google, and most other major search engines, knows it must satisfy the needs of those who seek content rather than those who provide content. Ultimately Google must provide its users with the most relevant, most appropriate, best quality content as easily and efficiently as possible. If it does not then its users will go elsewhere and it will become just another search engine instead of the Internet powerhouse it currently is.

So what does this mean to web site owners who want to position well with Google? Well first it means many of the so called 'black hat' Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques will ultimately be self defeating. these techniques center around fooling search engines into believing your site to be of higher search value than it actually is. However it is the search engines job to deliver good relevant search results, so they will root out sites using such techniques and 'punish' them with either exclusion or a very poor ranking. Money well spent?

A more sustainable, realistic approach to SEO is based on appropriate keywords within content of genuine worth.

In other words find the keywords that are right for you, then place them well within original, interesting content that others will want to link to. Finally let others know about your content so they can link to it. It's that simple.

Google may not care about you as a site owner, but it is interested in your content and wants to efficiently provide access to it. So give it what it wants, content. Fresh, interesting, relevant, quirky quite possibly, but lots of it. Let the search engines discern a theme to your content. If your in the widget business, then get appropriate widget centric words into your content, your headings, your titles, your links. When people link to your pages make sure they use your widgety words in the links. Be as consistent as possible, and eventually the search engines will get the message.

Search Engines are simple souls, it doesn't take much to get inside their minds. So just give them what they want, and they'll respond in kind.