by Bill Hartzer
You would think that when planning a new web site or a totally
new version of your web site that you can sit down, make a list of web
pages, create the content, and forget about it. That is simply not the
case. If you take a look at the current search results for most popular
search phrases, you will see that the best web sites (the ones showing
up at the top of the search results) not old, static web sites. They
are, in fact, updated on a regular basis and contain a lot of good
content on their subject. That brings me to the most important point
here: you cannot expect to create a few web pages and expect that web
site to rank well in the search engines (especially Google).
When
it comes to Google, they want to deliver the best user experience. When
you go to Google, you expect to find what you are searching for: if you
do not, then you will turn to another search engine. So, if you are
looking for “red widgets” then you would expect to find a web site that
has a lot of good information about “red widgets”. So, if you are a
company that sells “red widgets”, how would you go about getting a top
search engine ranking for “red widgets”? Creating more content on your
web site about “red widgets” than any other web site on the internet
about that subject will most likely bring you to the top of the search
results. Show the search engines and your web site visitors that you
are the expert on “red widgets” and you will be rewarded with good
search results.
It doesn’t matter what your do you your web
site. In fact, if you sell “red widgets”, then educating your potential
customers about “red widgets” will make them a more informed consumer.
Those potential customers will trust you: they will want to do business
with you.
How Do You Create Content?
How do you create
content? How do you create great content? How do you create content
that people will want to link to without even asking? That probably
could be a whole other blog post. But, there are a few options to
consider: create the content yourself or hire someone to create it for
you. It really depends on your industry that you are in, but generally
speaking there’s going to be some way to add additional content to your
site.
Doing it Yourself
One simple way of adding
content to your site on a regular basis would be to add a blog to your
web site. If you’re a corporation and you have a corporate web site
then perhaps adding your press releases to your web site before you put
them out on the newswires is an option. Or, if you are an online
retailer then perhaps adding a blog to the site and picking one product
per day to review would be enough. Other options, depending on your
site, could include user generated content. Adding a message board,
adding product reviews, aggregating the latest news from your industry
might be an option.
Hiring a Writer
Depending on your
industry, hiring an outside writer to create the content (write blog
posts for you), industry-related articles, or even reviews of your
products is an option. I have recently seen blog posts outsourced to
writers (contractors) for as little as $5 per article/blog post. And
I’ve seen them as high as $100-200 an article depending on the subject.
There are places to hire writers, such as Craigs List or even Guru.com.
Adding Content Regularly
Whatever
you do, whether or not you hire a writer or add the unique content to
your web site yourself (not copied or duplicate content), it’s
important to not add all the content all at once. For example, if you
were to hire someone to write 100 on-topic articles or blog posts, you
would want to add them on a regular basis to the site. Even if they’re
delivered to you all at once you would want to perhaps post 10 of them
at first; and then one or two per week or one or two per day. Take a
look at how often your competitors (the web sites that are already
ranking well in Google) are adding content to their web sites.
The bottom line
What’s
the bottom line? If you have a one or two web page site then most
likely you’re not going to rank well in the search engines. Look at
your competition: how many web pages do they have on their web sites?
Use the site:domain.com command to see how many pages your competitors
have. To compete, you will need at least that much content on your
site: or even more content. Having more content and adding more content
to your web site on a regular basis will bring you better search engine rankings.
You may also like to read:
- Google wants you to speed up your servers
- Search Engine Optimization In A Nutshell
- How to get content removed from Google
- Benefits of Search Engine Optimization for your Website
- How to get 50% more customers with a simple change
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Follow Us!