Building eCommerce Websites

Where's Your Content

by: Richard G Keir

Once again, it's being made clear that the old isn't old at all. Google's latest update makes it clearer than ever that actual content is truly one of the vital elements in creating a site that will continue to be successful.

As always, there's lots more to it - and some things that will be argued about in SEM forums and elsewhere, interminably and probably without any certain resolution.

I'm not convinced that even the Google programmers can explain why certain sites got dropped and others remained. I've done some searching and it's still easy to find quite a few pretty obvious spam sites with decent PR. And there are some sites with excellent content that lost their ranking. Of course, the full update is not over as I write this, so that could well change.

My main point is that not even the real SEO 'experts' who spend all their time testing can give you 100% definitive answers. And maybe not even the very few who actually know the entire algorithm (and who are not going to tell anyone else) can really explain exactly how it's working. This is a very complex process with a lot of factors.

What we do know is that all search engines like content, new, different and unique - and, generally, the more the better. Static sites, sites where new content is not being added on a regular basis, become stale and their rankings drop.

Solutions that involve large amounts of content from RSS feeds or search engine results are looking like a good method to get you dropped from Google.

Site scraping, which is done more than you might expect, is illegal. While imitation may be a form of flattery, stealing the full content from a site or blog is just criminal. Anybody who's going to do that isn't going to see the light suddenly by reading what I say, but if this seems even slightly tempting, forget it. You won't last long and the consequences aren't worth it.

But you still need content right? So where is it? The absolute best source of content is still articles you write yourself. Why? First, they're unique. Second, you can submit them to article directories for links and wider distribution. Third, branding. If you want to have repeat traffic, you need to provide things that people want. You need to continue to provide new things. Usually this translates to content. When you write your own content you can control the subject, the keyword density and which keywords are present. You can design your articles specifically to improve your ranking and at the same time provide your visitors what they're looking for.

The downside? It all takes time and you have to do your research. Very few people can write quality niche content without doing at least some research. It takes time. Combining the ideas you find into a new presentation takes time. However, if your plan involves a long-term business in a niche, it's well worth it. While all the information you use in your articles might be easily found with some searching, the reality is that very few people will do that search. And even fewer would extract and combine the information into an easily usable form. By doing it for them and creating articles and content based on simple searching, you become an expert. Your time investment can pay off in a major way as you become an acknowledged expert in your niche. Your site becomes an authority site. It doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

There is no magic, no instant solution. Of course, we all want one and that's one reason we keep buying books, tools, and so on that promise a quick and easy solution. But face the facts, if it existed, the owner certainly wouldn't be selling it (or at least not until it stopped working well). Just a little thought should make that obvious. All tools and techniques require learning, testing, modifying and just plain hard work to get the best results from them. No matter how you go about it, you need to invest time, and writing articles is a great investment for long-term success.

Let's deal right now with the most common objection. "But I can't write an article." If you can read and understand this article, then you can write. Do your research, become familiar with the information, talk it over with a friend. Then write it like you told it to your friend. Use a grammar checker, use a spelling checker. Hey, if you need to then use a speech to text processor. You can write if you can tell a story. One of the things I do offline is teach English and assist professionals in creating business, research, and medical presentations. Strangely enough, despite a lot of education many of them think they can't do it either. But they can explain it to me, even if I know nothing about their field. And that means they can explain it to their audience. And so can you. All you need to do is stop telling yourself. "I can't" and do it once. Believe me, it gets a lot easier after the first time.

If it still seems nearly impossible, start with the simplest kind of article. Gather tips, hints or tricks about a niche subject. The more closely related the better, though each should be different. Write each one as a separate paragraph. Write a short introduction - a paragraph explaining the subject and the type of hints or tips in the article. That's your first paragraph. Next come the tip paragraphs. If you need to, add linking or bridging sentences like: "Here's another way to improve your whatever-it-is." This kind of article is meant to be simple, clear and easy to understand. Nothing fancy required, just plain straightforward text.

It's a rare marketer who can write enough articles to provide the full content of a new site. Over time, however, more and more of the site's content can come from your own unique articles. Meanwhile where else can you look for high quality content?

PD (Public Domain) materials offer you another possibility. Sure, you have to make sure any PD content is really in the public domain and it may involve scanning, editing and proofing, breaking the materials down to suitable size and then making the appropriate pages and articles. Still in all, depending on your niche, you may well be able to find unique PD content that has never appeared in the SEs and which will be highly attractive to your site visitors. Aside from using it to create pages, you can create articles, viral PDFs or eBooks, products to sell, autoresponder series, newsletter content -- you are really only limited by your imagination.

Membership sites which offer private label products are also a valuable source of content. While some of these sites have a large number of members, the reality is that only a few actually use the content to the fullest. With this sort of content, you'll probably want to consider doing some rewriting and rearranging, adding some new content of your own and so on. Naturally, the more time you put in on modifying the content, the more unique it will be. Since the rights to different products on these sites may vary, make sure you understand what you can and can't do with any particular item - before you begin working on it.

Other sites offer packages of ghost-written private label articles. Some you might use as articles pages, others you might rewrite and submit as well as put them on your site. Again, check your rights to be clear on what is permitted (or required).

Another alternative is to hire ghost writers to produce content for you. A great deal of the information on a lot of sites and in a lot of info-products has been ghost-written. Content produced exclusively for you should definitely be unique. This may be more costly than other alternatives, but you are paying for the time saved, the uniqueness and for full rights to the content produced. You need to be careful doing this. Some ghost-writers are less than fully fluent in English, some are careless, some have a regrettable tendency to only make very minor modifications to material taken from sources that are on the internet. Ask for samples and if you like them, test the product with a small purchase. When you receive them, do some searches, maybe check at copyscape.com to be sure the content hasn't come verbatim off an existing site. These are just some basics, so if you plan to do this, study some of the projects up for bid and learn how to write a bid and what should go into the contract between you and your ghost writer.

Third-party articles are another source for added content. There's always a debate going on about whether or not putting published and distributed articles on your site will lead to a duplicate content penalty or some other negative result. A true duplicate content "penalty" results from having duplicated pages on your own site - not from having an article or other content that is also on other sites. At the same time, it may not help you a whole lot with the search engines. By including your own introductions before and/or comments after each article, you can differentiate your site from any other publishing the same article. The utility of third party articles should be considered more as providing a service to your visitors. Collecting articles with useful information in one easily accessible place provides added incentive for visitors to return and for webmasters to link to your site as a valued resource.

If you use a mix of the ideas in this article, you should be on your way to creating a valuable and sticky site that visitors will find useful and want to return to. And your site will be attractive to the search engines. Keep in mind that this is on-going process. Don't stop. Adding new and unique content regularly is one of the very best methods of guaranteeing a successful and long-lived web site.

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Please note, this version of "Where's Your Content?" may NOT be copied, published or otherwise distributed. A publishable version is available at various article directories such as goarticles.com and ezinearticles.com