Of course, that shouldn't be a surprise, considering how often officials at
Google proclaim the importance of good content. Yet traditional
SEO wisdom has little to
say about good writing.
Does Google, the world's wealthiest media company, really ignore traditional
standards of quality in the publishing world? Does Google, like so many website
owners, really get so caught up in the process of the algorithm that it misses
the whole point? Apparently not.
Most common on-page website content success features
Accessibility & CSS support packages
Get on-going help with:
Problem HTML
and/or CSS code
Accessibility checking of new or existing pages
The writing of HTML/CSS code
Training or advice on accessibility and/or CSS
Whatever the technical mechanism, Google is doing a pretty good job of
identifying websites with good content and rewarding them with high
rankings.
I looked at Google's top five pages for the five most
searched-on keywords, as identified by WordTracker on 27 June 2005. Typically,
the top five pages receive an overwhelming majority of the traffic delivered by
Google.
The web pages that contained written content (a small but significant portion
were image galleries) all shared the following features:
-
Updating: Frequent updating of content, at least once
every few weeks, and more often, once a week or more.
-
Spelling and grammar: Few or no errors. No page had more
than three misspelled words or four grammatical errors. Note: spelling and
grammar errors were identified by using Microsoft Word's check feature, and
then ruling out words marked as mis-spellings that are either proper names or
new words that are simply not in the dictionary. Does Google use SpellCheck?
Keep in mind that no one really does know what the 100 factors in Google's
algorithm are. But whether the mechanism is SpellCheck or a better shot at
link popularity thanks to great credibility, or something else entirely, the
results remain the same.
-
Paragraphs: Primarily brief (1-4 sentences). Few or no
long blocks of text.
-
Lists: Both bulleted and numbered form a large part of
the text.
-
Sentence length: Mostly brief (10 words or fewer).
Medium-length and long sentences are sprinkled throughout the text rather than
clumped together.
-
Contextual relevance: Text contains numerous terms
related to the keyword, as well as stem variations of the keyword.
SEO bugbears and
sacred cows
A hard look at the results shows that, practically speaking, a number of
SEO bugbears and sacred
cows may matter less to ranking than good content:
-
PageRank: The median PageRank was 4. One page had a
PageRank of 0. Of course, this might simply be yet another demonstration that
the little PageRank number you get in your browser window is not what Google's
algo is using. But if you're one of those people who attaches an overriding
value to that little number, this is food for thought.
-
Frames: The top two web pages listed for the most
searched-on keyword employ frames. Frames may still be a bad web design idea
from a usability standpoint, and they may ruin your search engine rankings if
your site's linking system depends on them. But there are worse ways you could
shoot yourself in the foot.
-
JavaScript-formatted internal links: Most of the websites
use JavaScript for their internal page links. Again, that's not the best web
design practice, but there are worse things you could do.
-
Links: Most of the web pages contained ten or more links;
many contained over 30, in defiance of the SEO bugbears about link
popularity bleeding. Moreover, nearly all the pages contained a significant
number of non-relevant links. On many pages, non-relevant links out-numbered
relevant ones.
-
Originality: A significant number of pages contained
content copied from other websites. In all cases, the content was
professionally written content apparently distributed on a free-reprint basis.
Note that the reprint content did not consist of content feeds. However, no
website consisted solely of free-reprint content. There was always at least a
significant portion of original content, usually the majority of the page.
Recommendations
-
Make sure a professional writer, or at least someone who
can tell good writing from bad, is creating your site's content. Most visitors
simply hit the back button when confronted with the unpalatable text, so the
increased traffic is just wasted bandwidth.
-
If you write your own content, make sure that it passes through the hands
of a skilled copywriter before going online.
-
Update your content often. It's important both to add new
pages and update existing pages. If you can't afford original content, use
free-reprint content.
-
Distribute your content to other websites on a free-reprint basis. This
will help your website get links in exchange for the right to publish the
content. It will also help spread your message and enhance your visibility.
Fears of a duplicate content penalty for free-reprint content (as opposed to
duplication of content within a single website) are unjustified.
ConclusionIn short, if you have a mature website that's already indexed and getting
traffic, you should make sure most of your investment is devoted to content.
This seems to be preferable to graphic design, old-school search-engine
optimisation, or linking campaigns.
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