I've been a big fan of Chris Dixon's excellent blog for a while now, so you can imagine that I was really excited to see him writing about SEO in a post last week. Chris kindly called out SEOmoz, which humbled me, but he also espoused some thinking in the comments that made me a bit concerned and was the catalyst for this post. Here's how it went:
RAND: Chris - I think the biggest thing you've forgotten to mention is that 70%+ of the weighting/ranking used by all of the engines depends on links. If you're not thinking about how your content and pages will incent users/bloggers/writers/media/other sites to link to your work, you'll lose out to someone who does.
A while back I got riled up about the lack of SEO in startup marketing and wrote about it - https://j.mp/4q9zkh - might be relevant/useful, though I did write with a bit more anger than was likely deserved.CHRIS: Rand - totally agree re links. But isn't getting links primarily about creating great content?
Read the article you link to btw and am in complete agreement.RAND: Tragically, at least in my experience, the answer is a resounding no. Great content is easily missed by the web's link-heavy audience, while some pretty crummy content that's been marketed well (or made the right connections or comes from the right sources) will tend to overperform.
The web's link graph isn't a meritocracy - like everything else in life, it's a popularity contest. Those who find the best ways to distribute, promote and market their works to the audience most likely to link to it are going to succeed much more so than just the "great content" producers.
Just think of it like politics. The best, most rational, reasoned, intelligent arguments are the exception, not the rule. Instead, the conversation and media attention (and thus, public awareness) is focused on concepts that are easy to grasp, virally distributable (which often puts rumor and innuendo above fact) and fit a compelling narrative (rather than add complexity).
A post on this topic - https://j.mp/4tYThK
I would love to tell Chris that he's right, that the better the content, the better, higher quality and greater quantity of links that content earns. But, perhaps sadly, that's not the case. What those in the content world would call "better" does not always (nor even mostly) garner the links and rankings. Instead, those who have "better optimized" for attracting links tend to far outshine their peers with rankings and traffic.
This may seem like a tragedy, or even a travesty of the democratic structure the web is supposed to represent, but in fact, it's the way all marketing has worked for generations. The "best" restaurants are often family-owned, hole-in-the-wall, never-marketed-themselves joints whose fabulous epicurean creations are a secret to all but the most diligent culinary Clouseaus. Meanwhile, the affront to humanity and cooking that is Olive Garden advertises relentlessly, conducts impeccable market research and appeals to the lowest common denominator in town after town to achieve geographic and market-penetration ubiquity (BTW - my wife is Italian and thus recoils at the very mention of this establishment and the tarnish it's brought to her beloved countrymen's kitchens).
Like many parts of life - it's not about the quality, diligence or aptitude you bring to your field, but your ability to market it successfully. As SEOs, our responsibility is to help the best of the best become the most noticed, most beloved and most linked-to in their field. It's a strange, almost paradoxical leap of logic, but once you internalize this principle, it gets easier to accept and to spread to your clients and managers.
p.s. I'm also a fan of Chris Dixon's startup, Hunch - I'd urge you to check it out and try answering a few dozen questions. The results are quite fascinating.
Great article, and I agree with your point.
I'd further your argument by thinking of it this way:
Lets assume that the probability that any given site will link to your content is a function of the quality of the content. The better your content, the more likely someone is to link to it -- all other things being equal.
However, the *actual* number of links you get will of course be in part dependent on how many people are exposed to the content in the first place.
So, even if your content is so brilliant that 100% of the people that see it link to it, if only 2 people see it, you're not going to get very far.
I'd posit that the essence of rankings is to have a balance between great content and ensuring that enough people see it.
I think the tragedy is actually that this isn't true either - it's less about the number of people you can expose it to and more about WHO those people are and what the content does for them. This short post covers a bit on that, but I probably need to write more deeply on it - pages don't just "earn" links for being great resources. In fact, I'd argue that with the rise of Twitter, even phenomenal content will sometimes earn 0 links (though it might get a few hundred re-tweets). Content that benefits the person linking to it (like you linking to your Twitter account or your profile page on a conference you're speaking at), on the other hand, might be low "quality" but it's beneficial to you to link to it - the link rewards the linker.
BTW - Hope your event last night went well; sounded fun :-)
You beat me to it with that one, Twitter does help people get out there, network and build a following - no doubt but it can also kill the websites run by the small guys. If someone tweets to your page/site they probably wont end up linking to it. The seo for firefox tool by seobook includes the number of twitter mentions a site has and although this might send a traffic wave over there is no long term benefit at all
We're just going to have to agree to agree on this one. You're right.
See? Who says I'm too stubborn to admit when I'm wrong?
BTW, Dharmesh, this comment of yours is officially the 100,000th comment on SEOmoz!! Congrats and thanks for playing!
Man I was holding out for that one...
Actually I was just going to give Rand a thumb up for using the word "Clouseaus."
The web game is all about reaching critical velocity, and hopefully before your competitors do.
The goal is to find the optimal, most efficient intersection between:
We know that all factors play a role, directly or indirectly. Due to limited resources of time and money though, it becomes less about working on everything, everywhere, and more about tactical solutions...finding the leverage points that multiply effort put forth.
Rather than working for links from all, focus on links from power players, the linkerati.
Rather than optimizing every single page, focus on optimizing key landing pages, creating internal power link pages that can then be used like a power station, distributing link juice out selectively to internal pages as needed.
Rather than making all content great, focusing on creating great content on key landing pages, a handful of excellent link bait pieces of content.
Perhaps sadly, yes, it is about reaching that critical velocity where popularity and maybe even herd mentality allows a site to trump even those that are superior in product or service.
Yes, SEO is about marketing... sometimes, if you are lucky enough, you are marketing the best, or even the good, but there isn't anything to say that you might be marketing the bad and the ugly...SEO itself is blind.
SEO is about the long game, but you have to win the short game, reaching that critical velocity, to even be in the long game.
Interesting discussion. But lets step back a bit. What's the big picture? Isn't the goal to not only attract relevant traffic, but to engage and convert that traffic? To do all 3 -- attract, engage, convert -- you need great content. And yes you need links, but shouldn't getting those links be easier with great content?
Rand, let's use your Olive Garden example. What's the point of great advertising that draws the crowds if the food sucks? Who will come back? So the advertising may have worked, but in the big picture the marketing has failed.
Content Rules!!
Surely what I'm going to write has already been said in this so 'talked' post.
I think that when we relate to websites we have to abstact our minds from just-search-engines-issues. Finally, what we look for are visitors, as a novelist is looking for readers or an 'offline' shop for clients.
Therefore we have to think to people, how to convince them to visit our website.
Therefore, after all the technical SEO, we have to dedicate the 90% (or more) of our time to the Human SEO, which is really a marketing mix of tactics that come from the past.
For instance, if our website is a niche one about the Jamon Serrano (and obviously filled with great content), we have to promote it. First to the gastronomers of every kind in papers and news, then to Jamon Serrano Fanatics bloggers (Web PR), then creating a great PPC campaign with a launch offer... and if it something that need UGC better (a best recipe with Jamon Serrano Contest could be an idea). Then we will have not to forget the old classic: email marketing. And finally (but there could be more tactics to use) work on the Social Media side of marketing creating a really good Jamon Serrano Fan Page on Facebook and a Jamon Serrano Twitter Account ("your direct connection with the Jamon")...
Without a real marketing strategy, content itsself can't do that much... as a writing a new "The Lord of the Rings" and leave it in your shelf with no promoting it outside will not make you a real new Tolkien.
Firstly, "quality" is highly subjective, so it's a daft way to try and want something to be measured in practical terms.
More importantly, I need you all to be honest. Whether you are in-house or agency, are the sites you promote REALLY the best in their field? Maybe some of you are fortunate enough to be able to say "yes", and many of you will be insecure enough to feel the need to say "yes, but deep down, the answer is usually "no". SEO is marketing, and marketing has nothing to do with the truth. It has to do with the perception of truth, of influencing behaviour.
So I say, hurrah to the way things are. Of course it isn't perfect, but that's life. We just need to get down and dirty and do what we can to generate rankings. Of course, "quality" content gives itself a better chance of gaining links but it's our job to facilitate that.
Excellent comment, and spot on.
Content or quality content is not king and never has been.
It's always been about getting links and the kings are those who know how to use 'unique' content correctly in order to manufacture or attract those links.
Come on guys, how much highly stumbled, tweeted, dugg CRAP have you seen? If you have the following and authority you can attract links to just about anything.
Google ranking for the keyword "caffeine" is the perfect example of a low quality page ranking with no real content at all, but it has the links and thats all that matters, at the minute.
Really good point, thumb up for you Bludge.
Quality content has only a better chance to beat crap content if same SEO effort are applied.
Also agree with Rand's "restaurant theory". Nobody knows you no matter how good you are, unless you let them know.
Your words are perfect to me, yeah, i have some deals of sites optimization, but several are not good, i mean the content aks the products, but i have to take effort to make it rank well, i think that is really have nothig with my job, i just make it rank well in se and drive traffic there, right, i just do my job! That is life!
If Paul Revere hadn't been such an excellent communicator/marketer maybe Americans would still be pledging allegience to the Union Jack.
That being said, If Paul Revere's message wasn't so importanat and relevant maybe no one would have moved.
Use links to get the people to your site, and use great content to make conversions.
I believe there is an interesting story about Paul Revere & "THE Other Guy" in the Book The Tipping Point . Essentially there is a reason why no one can name the other guy who carried the same message in a different direction :)
Haha, I have read Malcom Gladwell's account of the fabled horse ride - great stuff!
Isn't this just a fact of business and life? You can have a really good product fail due to inadequate marketing in any field. Likewise some mediocre/average products can become the next big thing because of superb marketing. Although sometimes its a shame to say but a really BAD product can also be promoted successfully with a well managed marketing campaign.
I think the important thing to remember is to improve the quality of your product/site. I think of "quality" as the degree to which the product/site meets the specifications of the customer, reader, search engine, the linkerati etc. With such good "quality" content it is easier to promote the product/site with a marketing campaign (however it is still not guaranteed to be a success).
This post reminds me of CMOT Dibbler for some reason.... marketing sausage-inna-bun is probably not easy. :P
Rand, you don't know how happy I am to hear you say this. It is frustrating to hear people tout the wonders of good content over and over again without giving credit to the marketing behind it.
If it were as simple as having good content, our jobs would be a heck of a lot easier.
People forget that good SEOs are marketers that know how to market a product/service and use optimization and content writing as parts of that process. Getting wonderful content in front of eyeballs can be the biggest part of the challenge.
Very nice your comment, as a seo, i have hire some copywriters to produce good content, but the important thing is where we post it, and let more people see it! I think that is come to the point!
Do you consider good SEOs the marketers who buy links? If not, can you explain please?
Thanks Linzyou.
Seoworkers - It's a little off-topic, but there are some instances where buying links is alright in my opinion. For example, links from Yahoo! Directory and Business.com never seem to hurt. Also, if you produce accounting software and you decide to be one of the paid sponsors for an annual accounting convention, this make sense (from a branding and linking POV).
If given the right budget (aka time to produce a good idea), a good marketer should not need to buy links. Unless, like I mentioned above, it makes sense to increase your online visibility by being in places your target market already goes (like a paid sponsorship).
While the Olive Garden may be inauthentic crap, enough people enjoy eating there to keep it in business.
Its a combination of valuable content and good marketing - just like anything else. If your content is garbage, no one cares how well you market it. If your marketing is garbage, no one can find your valuable content. Its a balance.
Marketing is a reality. There are alot of smart people driving cabs for a living. Even if you aren't fond of the promotion process of business you still need to develop this aspect of marketing so people can find what you have to offer. Technical jargon aside and speaking in practical terms; For the web, link building is part of the process. Without it great content will not get noticed or found. It's like planning a great party and not telling your friends where is.
You are right - content is not King and quality content alone does not drive the links most websites need to rank well.
content certainly is NOT king, and never will be.
Links are king, and linking to content that is total garbage will always still boost the trust factor of the page, irrespective of the content it contains.
Great examples are the "click here" page on adobe for instance - its a PR10 (how many of those are there??) https://get.adobe.com/reader/
Choose any three or four word string on that page (with zero decent content) and it will rank.
awesome linking example with Adobe Reader. Checked and it is PR10! #1 on Google too for "Adobe Reader". Sorry for stating the obvious, but very interesting to make these types of correlations in boosting rankings.
It definitely makes sense that this holds true on the web.
In almost every other field the most marketed and the most well-distributed content becomes the most popular.
This holds true for TV shows, music, movies, restaurants, clothing stores and everything else. I wish it were different, but it makes sense that it's true on the web as well.
Of course great content is no guarantee of a high ranking. But all things being equal, great content is far more likely to result in a high ranking than poor content.
This inequality of heavily linked content != best content is exactly what the non link related ranking factors are supposed to mediate. Finding the actual best content, not necessarily just the best linkbait.
Whether or not they are succeeding is a whole nother conversation.
We'd like to think so, but search engines evaluate quantitatively - which is why they're so heavily reliant on the link graph to determine quality/relevance.
The day when a machine has true semantic understanding - when it can read a page and decide, without measuring external signals, the "quality" of that page - that will be the day I go off the grid. Because next we'll have machines creating this "quality" content, and that is too much like an Isaac Asimov story to be a good thing.
I totally agree Mike. Semantic understanding could determine the true subject matter, but when it can actually determine the content to be factually based or even sound theory that will be the day.
...and despite what some Hollywood productions studios may think, no one's come up with a way to predict what people will enjoy watching any more than anyone has come up with LSI software to write content people will enjoy reading. Links are most everything in ranking, but persuading people is the point of what we do, so content doesn't matter much... until someone actually gets to a page. Then (here comes the cliche) content is king.
Thanks,You help me to undertand the relationship of content and links in the seo purpose, links is the king of your sites ranking in serp, and the content decide the percent of conversion, but that is the next lesson! Thanks all your discussion.
Seems like it would not take much to measure quality. Its just would cost an enourmouse amount of money to do it with today's technology. Measuring bounce rates, time on page, uniqueness of content, and measuring the same things for the site as a whole as compared to other pages and sites would create a real measure of engagement.
So you've presented the problem, but what's the solution?I can write some amazing content (like a guide) for my ecommerce site, but how do I get links to it that aren't engineered by me?More to the point, would anyone actually want to link to it, even if it could help me with my targetted search terms?
If you truly believe that you have produced useful content you should find ways to promote it via the social web like Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg and others. Help others and demonstrate your expertise when appropriate. I would also continue your more manual link acquisition efforts.
But i think from twitter the backlink is not the anchor text links like, and they are tiny url, and no follow, do you think that is help to get juice to seo purpose? Thanks
Absolutely, Rand. Then there's keyword research to make sure you target the right searches, organizing your content, measuring results and starting again at research.
Indeed, any discussion about SEO aimed at noobs should really refer to the whole process of SEO or it might mislead. So I will:
1. Keyword research (gets target keywords)
2. Site structure & navigation
3. Content
4. Promotion(the bit that gets the links)
5. Measure & repeat
Nice post, Rand.
When the medium is growing and becomes more popular, the "quality turns to quantity" rule goes into the game.
This happened TV, radio, books, etc. And as always, marketing is a way to promote and become unique enough to obtain the goal.
What is sad in my opinion is that with more and more people contributing to the web (I am sorry to say that but I don't believe in majority of whole Internet population to write smart & new things of high quality) the marketing is becoming more crucial to get the attention of others.
Thus, high quality content is important but I predict that marketing (links, link baiting, etc.) will become even more crucial to popularize the nice content we may have or dealt with in our SEO projects.
One thing I can say...having a good content always creates a positive impression on your business.
This post and discussion inspired my own blog post, "Whiter Web Content?" https://bit.ly/4GXDJc
Will SEO and the increasing pace of social media (e.g., Google real-time search) will kill quality content on the web?
At the end of the day, the readers who make the clicks are looking for something good. Even if they click through popular but mediocre content in their search for what they want, they are *driven* to the web by the promise--or at least the hope--of discovering something worthwhile.
@sawtooth and @attorneysync, you've summarized the great dilemma of SEO.
Those of you who get paid according to page ranks and CTRs may not believe Content is King, but I do. https://www.contentfactor.com
We were chatting in office about what is the best way to place our content, does google treat blog posts as just news and they get short term weight (latest news) then fall off or if it was better to split our content onto our main pages. I know in many ways it comes down to how many links it gets, but is good content better in your blog or as a main piece of content. When i'm talking about blog i still mean its on our site domainname.com/blog/
@gobananas
Great name.
This really depends on a few variables.
The strength of your domain,
The frequency that you make changes to your content.
If your content is related to anything presently in the news.
How you promote your content.
As has been said above, just posting the most awesome, relevant content in the history of world is unfortunately not enough to get it noticed.
One of the reasons news sites get such high placement in search results is because they are considered "Authority sites" and they are constantly changing content with relevant information that gobs of searchers are looking for.
Since every search engine lives or dies by their results, No search engine wants to be the last to have a resource for the latest news query. In order to have that quickly, the search engine builds a base of trusted sources that it can use and trust to give good results.
If you have the staff and time to build up a reputation like that then yes your post can be treated like a news site.
And the content you produce would rank well as long as the interest in the story it related to was still in search queries. And drop off as the queries dwindled in favor of more current topics.
But it is tough to attain and maintain. A better plan for most of us is to keep working on building good content while working out the best way to promote the information with either Social Media, bookmarking, and get enough information spread across the web so that your great content doesn't go unnoticed.
Hope that helps.
Marketing (and links) lead visitors to your content.
Great content keeps them coming back...and buying.
You can't have one without the other.
Great post. This really comes down to an argument over quality versus popularity. I imagine a lot of SEOs are selling the content is king bit to their clients because it's much easier sell and provide "quality" content than to deliver popular content. Ever try explaining link juice and ranking algorythms to people not in the search marketing field? Yikes!
I'm so bored with "content is king". I work in legal and it's absolutely absurd what law firm seos are selling their clients.
Funny thing, I could find the place to send you a message so this seems like the easiest way to get you to notice this.
I was looking on a website the other day and clicked on "10 most unique proposals" and saw your proposal listed. Watched the video.. Very impressive, It made me feel all warm inside seeing that. It was very cool..
Then I was searching for info on facebook advertising material and came across this website, which i registered with my business a few months ago... and i saw a comment you posted.. a few searches later, found out YOURE THE GUY!!!!
Thought id share.. You're famous.. Congrats, and good luck in the future.
Thanks for the provocative read. The unfairness with online popularity (hense pagerank, traffic, etc.), just like with the Olive Garden ordeal is based and relative to the democratic platform or the foundation of this reasoning. How can we be sure that the platform in both online and offline situations, that eventually leads to the corporate entities pushing out the small business fish, is infact a democracy? Just wandering...
I'd agree that great content does not necessarily equal great rankings.
Once a site reaches a certain level of popularity, then any content can result in great rankings without extra promotion.
Take Wikipedia for instance. Any page that is created on Wikipedia will likely rank pretty well due to its domain strength. Searchers recognize Wikipedia and are likely to click on it in the search results. Wikipedia is also seen a great resource and people are quite used to (and willing to link to it). The result is that a reasonably obscure page like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekere gets links from 20 unique domains naturally.
On the other hand, if a Shekere page (with better content than the Wikipedia page) was created on a different mid-range website, it would likely start off much lower in the rankings. Fewer people would see it (and those that do see it might be a bit more hesitant to link to that page compared to a Wikipedia page), so it would likely attract fewer natural links and remain perpetually lower in the rankings. The only way (despite having better content) to close the gap and perhaps outrank Wikipedia is to do it through promotion/link acquisition.
Rand, thank you for drawing attention to this disparity. I spoke on this exact topic at BarCamp Nashville a couple months ago.
The one thing missing from this discussion is how Google's renewed interest in semantics (as seen in the Google Squared project, etc.) is increasing the value of attributes in code. With Google rewarding content that helps the algo get right to the most relevant data bits, a new dimension has been added to the definition of great content that Google will reward.
Keep up the stellar work. Your webinar last week was the best I've seen.
Matthew Freeman
great book by the way art of seo's a great read! theres a lot of intelligent argument that says linkbuilding is the way to go and web content writing less so-fair enough
but I think the role of content has been underplayed slightly if not now for the future?? and also the link with strategy if your only strategy is to gain links in to your site to push it temporarily up the rankings then fair enough a good seo will get it up there.
But...with a marketers hat on, surely if you are also building a ppc campaign as well as linkbuilding then you will need the good content to ensure your quality scores and landing pages get your ads in the top 3-7 positions and ensure that your CTR is high. Also if the search engines in the future reply more on latent semantics and modifiers etc then the content on your pages wil be just as important as the links ?? worth a discussion I thought
Andy
a nice place
Nice Post Rand.
I always think, that good content mean great ranking.
don't said it's democracy, it's demoCRAZY. :p
I always agree with the fact that, "Content is King". But content alone can never bring up rankings. Everyone who writes a content will try their level best to make it appealing by making it fresh and unique. For each one their own content will be a great one but all dont get themselves ranked for the content they write.
Linking is very important and exposing the content for links to others is marketing. So I absolutely agree with your views.
Great post! I would like to say that the answer lies somewhere in the middle between "great content" and "great marketing" but in reality i think "great marketing" prevails. Case in point is the Pet Rock. Does anyone remember that ridiculous novelty? Sheer marketing genuis - or - indicative of the intelligence level of the consumer population, but I won't get into that :) Bottom line is that no matter how powerful marketing is, it should not replace good content. I am fairly new in this field and am amazed at the huge number of posts/blogs/articles I read that not only don't have good content - they have non-existent content. After reading way too many of these posts, It's refreshing to read posts such as yours, that not only have good content, but inspire and promote great discussions. I will still follow the "content is king" philosophy for myself because it makes me feel better about my contributions and my work. I don't believe in writing (or talking for that matter) without having anything to contribute. However, I will also be sure to use the best marketing tactics at my disposal to promote my content. Thanks for writing this post and to those who made follow-up comments.
Getting links to your site is a must in relation with SEO. Producing good quality links to your site is where you will increase the power of your site and increase your SERP'S.
In relation with content I also feel this is somewhat equally important. Having a link along with strong informative content is what people are looking to read. Some readers may not have visited your site before therefore having compelling content which draws visitors into the page seems to be playing an increased role in the SEO field.
Its sadly 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.
Good content is needed for people to find it interesting and worthy of linking to; however this should not be done at the expense of not optimising a site to ensureits visability.
No-one will link to a site that looks like the backside of a digestivly-challenged cow.
The restaurant analogy, whilst sort of getting the point across, doesn't really work.
The small family restaurant, whilst serving the best food, gets less foot flow due to poor advertising. True, to begin with. However, as the food here is so amazingly good, people will write about it; blogs, forums, reviews including offline material such at newspapers and word-of-mouth. From here it will gain both more foot flow as well as media coverage. As a direct consiquence its popularity will sore.
In the digital world; the small family website may have awesome content, but no SEO implimentation. Traffic may start with the familys relations, then their friends, then their friends, then their friends...a point will be reached where, as the content is so good, backlinks will be being created in blogs and forums.
Suddenly, the site has established a growing backlink portfolio due to it having amazing content.
Yes, the site will never smash SERPs apart purly by gaining organic backlinks like this, but it will sure increase its ranking as well as traffic levels.
I'd never suggest a website not to impliment SEO (even just the basic) however all is not lost if their content is great.
Paul Martin
Cube3 Marketing
nice article Rand. Not only the content matters. I mean yes linkbaiting is a really good way to produce natural links, but by itself it means nothing :)
It was a nice read!
But I think that just like the links content also should be 'above average' at least. Links are for search engines, and yes that helps lots but if no good content is there with any sites people will just enter and leave. The bounce rate will be as lower as it can be. I don't think that without great content we can make people hang around our websites. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks.
I do not find a single point in this post that is too innovative or new to search industry. Everybody knows that good content could not be a guarantee to have thousands of back links unless that content would have been shared or promoted among various social networks like twitter, facebook etc. Otherwise, it would still be a nice content but people will not come to know about that nice content and how they will link that content.
So good content != backlinks; However,
Good content + some kind of promotion = plenty of backlinks
Great article! I've just been writing about this very topic.
It's not always the best content that rises to the top. You only have to look at youtube for a few minutes to see the viral spread of some ridiculous nonsense, while someone's lifetime's work goes barely noticed.
By endorsing this popularity contest, the big search engines have further skewed the playing field towards both the lowest common denominators of taste / intellect - and towards those with the biggest marketing budgets. I lament in some ways the old days of the internet, because the playing field appeared a little more level after the hierarchical world of television.
Isn't there some way they can measure the IQ and skill of the person who wrote the page by analysis of the length and variety of words used? ;)
What about Cuil? I see their claims that they a) index 3 times as much of the web as Google and b) don't overemphasize popularity.
https://www.cuil.com/info/our_philosophy/
The wikipedia example given above is interesting. I once created a page around the same subject as a wikipedia page, only made mine a far better quality article than the small stub at wikipedia. My result has always come in 2nd in Google - but I just noticed hat in Cuil, it is #1.
I might just make them my default engine. :)
Best regards,
Alex Newman
https://www.money-while-you-sleep.biz/link-building-black-book.html
Let us not forget the fundamentals... location, location, location! If you do not understand your customer base enough to know where they live and interact... you are wasting your time on content.
links is the king of your sites ranking in serp!
nice post!
I think an interesting point that is missing is talking about the content network in terms of advertising. Advertising on the content network basically means you are buying space on websites, like Ad Sense. The keywords you choose (aka: content) will determine which websites your ads will be displayed on. You can place ads on any keywords that you think the market may be interested in your product or service. So content is important in this regard.
If you want to read more you can read an article I wrote about SEM basics: https://www.psycray.com/sem-basics.html
Thanks for the nice post, i have known the content vs links problem better, yeah, if the content is complete and then the major work of seo is to flood your sites, get more links, increase the links popularity, and then get better rank. I just wondering that whether the backlinks for other search engie add weighting to the google Rank?
Great post but I don't know...it's hard for me to believe this is true for everyone. Some of the website owners I've worked with have pithetic links. Competition has pithetic links (if any really). So often it seems like all I have to do is touch the website and it improves. I know links are so important...but if I were a search engine I would pay close attention to the vast number of website owners who have the kind of content people want but no one in their right mind is going to link to them because its pointless. To me...relevance isn't always about popularity.
Great article. 100% agree. This is the same thing all of us tell clients. You should engage in SEO because if people can't find you you can't expect to grow your business. You should engage in marketing your content because if people can't find it they won't link to it.
I agree overall. I often link to extremely valuable resources with quality content because I know my reputation is on the line, so in that case quality content gets links. For most industries this may not be the case. It is essential to market your quality content and network with "Linkerati".
The comparison to the media sealed this idea for me and made it crystal clear!
As someone who is a 25% Sicilian and who has Full Sicilian famaly I agree with your wife on Olive Garden. It's the Cleveland Browns of Italian Food!
Amen. All Hail the Link.
Was it you who said "links are the currency of the SEO" or something similar?
I'll always stick to that.
Think it's "links are the currency of the web".
That would make much more sense. Thanks for clearing this up :).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Rand. How unfair this democracy may seem, that's how it is. You either have the choice to hop along, or refuse and risk to be left out.
I spend my time balancing between creating good content and effictively promoting it. However, some of the best things hardly get the attention they deserve.
Great post, Rand. I certainly agree with your point that it is our responsibility is to help the best of the best become the most noticed, most beloved and most linked-to in their field. Every SEOs should realize this.
But there can only be one "best of the best" - you can't build an SEO business around that.
Great post! I've just started producing content for my site. I don't have a problem creating it that come naturally to me but promoting it is were I am struggling. I don't have strong enough presence on the web yet (but its early days)
As a musician that (in my opinion) has written some great songs in my time I can defiantly tell you its not always the best stuff that gets to the top. I wish I were, I'd be a rock star by now! but at least if we acknowledge this we can take the right steps towards promoting great content in the way it deserves!
Cheers
I still think there is an eternal battle between SEOs and search engines.
As the discussion illustrates. It's not about great content etc, but about how well you can market it through the various channels. The info may not be relevant, useful or accurate as a result. ngines are taking other factors into consideration with the whole social media listings etc.
nice post though...
EEEK!!! it can never be simple ;)
Links are king and anybody who knows SEO will (or should at least) already know this but I still think content has a massive role to play in not just SEO, but the user-centric view of your website.
We've picked up websites from clients who've had SEO carried out on there websites and all the previous company has done is put them into some decent web directories and that's got them ranking moderately. What the previous company didn't do however, is do any kind of keyword research / analysis so this company was ranking for incorrect terms.
We've had a massive boost in rankings since running our blog www.unionroom.com/blog and that's because of the links we gather from people linking to the articles we publish.
Its classic marketing and ironic that anyone in marketing would like to think that they are been badly done to when they are producing content that is of a high quality and not link building to it, they should know better - you need to be pro active
I believe it is true that certain types of content are better for "link bait" than others. However, say you take a blogger who just started a new site; unless they are a well known person in their industry, they will inevitably start with little to no traffic. With that being said, even if they write the highest quality content in the world, nobody is there to read it. This is where the marketing piece of the puzzle comes into play.
For sites that have already established a presence in their niche, they can get away with creating average content and still earn a lot of links because of their readership and authority in the industry. I am not saying this happens often since they most likely built their authority from creating high quality content. I'm just saying that a site or persons brand has a big part to do with how many links they earn from their content.
I got 64 unique backlinks for unique content in 6 months. The 1st one got 60 links in first month and 4 new links after by itself without marketing. The 2nd piece of content was 4 times more interesting, got 7 links in first month and the 57 links after, whith aggresive marketing. They got the same number of unique root level links (though the first has more links in general). That is the lesson.
While I can appreciate that content is king there's the factor that other relative authority sites might not see your content, and consequently not link to you. As a result those that go out, and do more end up in front. Even Matt Cutts of Google talks about getting inbound links in his videos. SEO on the web is just another way of networking, and engaging with audiences. Unfortunately this takes some work, with literal influence. I believe in time these metrics will change based on SERP, and public DNS monitoring. I look forward to your Link Building webinar on the 10th!
The issue with these types of posts is that you tend to speak in absolutes. Great content is not the only component of SEO - I'm pretty sure we all know that.
Good content brings in links, gets people to come back, and gets people to convert. However, you're presenting your argument as if it doesn't matter at all. It's definitely a pretty big piece of the puzzle.
In my experience great content (or at least well-written, informative and interesting content - is that what we mean by great?) does better on the long-tail than superficial content, even if the superficial content is technically better optimised.
On the other hand our feed readers are crammed full of seriously crap content. Or maybe it is just mine.
I think it is an idealistic fallacy to assume great content is all we need. In the same way, we know it isn't just "what is on the inside that matters" and sometimes a little bit of lipstick goes a long way.
People you should accept this and move on.
I don't get why some of you say 'well, unfortunately, this is the way this thing is...' UNFORTUNATELY???
#1 You're up to an ideal that 'good content is kind and unfortunately that isn't the case.' WHAT IS GOOD CONTENT? Define it. Everyone has different definition. Totally subjective.
So I think instead of us whining about this we should be grateful to know this instead of falling under the google PR machine (but who has to blame them? If they told you that you should build links then imagine what would happen...their profits would fall and they'll probably go bankrupt because nobody would have cared about content so much.)
I think it is also important not to go to extremes here.
Content is IMPORTANT (adsense farms or 100% fluff content is not gonna get you ranked definitely) and links are also important.
Just I think Rand wanted to say here, indirectly, don't believe the Google PR machine which says 'produce great content and traffic wil come.'
Obviously, "great content" is largely subjective. Google can only determine it's worth through other means, like links. So, as Rand mentiioned, it is similar to a popularity contest.
Of course, other factors are include, but this is a good way to look at how Google deems something as good content. You must consider though that are good content will many times gain more links. But if the content producer doens't know how to spread it, that content might hide forever.
I agree, links are far more important that the content...
Despite the inherent problems with using links to determine the importance of content that leads to realizations such as this, short of having an impartial human editor reading every single website post on the internet and researching exactly how much people rely on other sites as a resource, counting incoming links and tracking all web pages relative to one another is the best system available.
I totally agree that 70% of the battle are links (perhaps that's even a little conservative). I've tested this so many times with micro-niche sites that have had close to no content, but were able to rank high for decent 2-3 keyword terms due to backlinks alone. Unfortunately, until search engines "grow up" and start using the metrics that really matter (bounce rate, time spent, etc.), it will still be a biased game toward who can get the best/most links.
It's all a big oxymoron, since the whole point of links are for other people to link back to you in appreciation, not for marketers to spend hours out of their daily routine to abuse the system (which is all linkbuilding really is).
This post makes me feel quite ambivalent.
Sometimes I feel we have completely forgotten about journalism and content quality in lieu of optimization.
Sure, there are ways to cast both SEO and journalism but that's more the exception than the rule.
I guess I'm kind of old fashioned, but I still believe in content quality over ranking. In most of the cases, you can achieve both just by proper (and clever) use of writing tools.
Then again, it's just an opinion.