Why “Content is King” is Even Truer Today
Posted on 11. Sep, 2009 by Adam in Entrepreneurship
The phrase is often used and in many respects is rather hackneyed but it holds as true today as when it was first suggested by Bill Gates back in the mid-90s. Gates maintained that the Internet represents a means of providing information to people and that they will use it as a tool to satisfy their unquenchable thirst for knowledge. We often hear “content is king” in the world of Internet marketing and it is important to understand why we should consider this statement to be true.
If you’re looking for conversions then you have so many elements to consider. You want to attract visitors to your website of course, first and foremost and whether we like to believe it or not, the quality of the written word on our site is very important in this respect, even before any human being actually reads it. When a visitor has arrived at the site we need to achieve two things. Firstly, we need to make sure that they at least stay there longer than a split second and secondly, we need to convince them to stay by using engaging content.
As we only have a fraction of a second to stop people from clicking the back button, the composition of our site must be visually appealing. Color, composition, structure, graphics and text style are all very important and relative placement can often make the difference. We have all seen those “heat maps” which tell us that someone looks at the “10 o’clock” position on the page first more often than not, for example.
While volumes can be written on website design, it is becoming even more apparent that the quality of the content is equally, or more important. Google, especially is becoming very adept at translating and deciphering the content of your webpage. It appears that they are using the concept of latent semantic indexing (LSI) and automated algorithms really have a very clear idea of relevance. No longer is it good enough to simply ensure that your primary keyword is mentioned an optimum number of times within the body of your webpage. The surrounding verbiage must be relevant and Google is effectively looking for a variety of “secondary” keywords or a synonymic spread of words throughout.
If we believe that Google is trying to mimic artificial intelligence in this way and is now coming close to being able to interpret an article and its relevance just as a human being would, then we must believe that not only is content king, but it is also the rest of the royal family as well.
If we are to attract people to our page first of all, we cannot try and optimize for a keyword alone because the robots will know better. We must optimize for the keyword and make sure that the content is well thought out, laser-targeted and definitely relevant or we are unlikely to be able to attract the “eyes” in the first place. However, when we do get those visitors and we have composed an enticing webpage, then we can be pretty sure that we will be able to satisfy their need for the target content and may stand a much better chance of enticing them into our sales funnel.
Do you believe that content is king or do you have a different view?
Matthew Toren
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13 Responses to “Why “Content is King” is Even Truer Today”
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Tineke
11. Sep, 2009
I totally agree. Content, and copy in general, is vastly underrated. In tests I’ve been involved with, copy is up there with usability in terms of the biggest conversion gains.
Clarky
11. Sep, 2009
True. If the Internet don’t change, I think that content will always be the king.
Briefcases
11. Sep, 2009
Yes it will always be important to provide good content. It’s not just about making a certain page read well. It’s also about providing the specific kind of content that your visitors are looking for. You need to answer their questions and satisfy their needs.
spotcher
12. Sep, 2009
google has built an empire not on the thesis that content is king, but that the “channelling, management and delivery of content is king”. FB and Twitter manage and deliver content. They’re vessels for it. great content without an audience (ie marketing + brand + reach) is nothing.
Storm Trooper Costumes
12. Sep, 2009
Youre dead right. you cant beat content and the power it has. For me its all a numbers game really. If I create a website with 30 500 word articles, and each article gets 4 visitors per day, then Im building powerful content that will make me money in some shape or form. Unique QUALITY content coupled with basic SEO always works for me.
Awais
13. Sep, 2009
Yes i agree with you if the content are good you will get more readers.
buy and sell philippines
13. Sep, 2009
For me, content is the queen and user experience is the king. Why? Because even if you have a good content to share, if your users are having a hard time browsing through your site, reading your posts or anything like that…. then why would they even come back?
I personally wouldn’t waste my time on a site where I’ll have a hard time looking for what I want. Just my 2 cents… :)
Damon Day
13. Sep, 2009
Adam,
I certainly agree with you. I have noticed that a few days after posting some of my posts I am ranking on the first page of google for longer tail key words. I haven’t done anything to optimize those posts either.
I get so tired of looking for something, clicking a link and it is just crap content that looks like it went through an article spinner. I hope google gets to the point where it can easily filter that stuff out.
Jay
14. Sep, 2009
not only content, but the fashion in which is presented on the page — that is, how the (x)html is around the content. the last thing search engines want to do is wade through a bunch of useless crap to get to the meat. hence, the emergence of microformats, rdfa, and the semantic web.
Ryan Biddulph
16. Sep, 2009
Adam,
Content is always kind. People search far and wide for value. Provide value in the form of useful, knowledge-packed content. Readership will rise significantly as you make content the top priority.
Volksphone
19. Sep, 2009
Content is king. You get only revisiting users if you provide good and useful content. The true worth of the site is the rate of visitors who are coming back. If you do not provide king content you never get really successful.
Best regards,
Volksphone
A.B
23. Dec, 2009
“Content is king.”
It sounds good in principle. Produce a truly great piece of content, and you’ll get all the links you could ever hope for.
Maybe it worked too, several years ago. The Web used to be a fairly quiet place compared to what it is now, and it was easier for people to notice great blog posts.
But not anymore.
Now great is no longer good enough. The Web is full of so much remarkable content that bloggers don’t have enough time to read it all, much less link to it.
If you want links now, you need to be more than great. You need to be connected.
http://arthur-internetmarketing-guide.blogspot.com/2009/12/is-content-really-king.html#more