Why Content Matters More Than SEO

Content matters a great deal more than SEO, and here’s why: too many marketers focus on SEO at the exclusion of relevant content on websites. All the backlinking and keywords can’t replace content, and given the latest reports out of Google, content will be given a greater focus than keywords and backlinking when it comes to website rankings. Here’s the report from this spring’s SXSW in Austin, where Google’s Matt Cutt had this to say about SEO marketers:

“And the idea,” Cutts said, “Is basically to try and level the playing ground a little bit, so all those people who have sort of been doing, for lack of a better word, ‘over-optimization’ or overly doing their SEO, compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we want to sort of make that playing field a little more level.

So that’s the sort of thing where we try to make the website…the Googlebot smarter, we try to make our relevance more adaptive, so the people who don’t do SEO, we handle that, and then we also start to look at the people who sort of abuse it, whether they throw too many keywords on the page or whether they exchange way too many links, or whatever they’re doing to sort of go beyond what a normal person would expect in a particular area. So that is something where we continue to pay attention, and continue to work on it…we have several engineers on my team working on that right now.”

Does it mean that SEO needs to stop being used? Not necessarily, but it should be a small component of social marketing. Content generation is where it’s at, and the more compelling the content is, the more clicks you will receive, and your website will receive a better ranking. Also, if you use advertising on your website, it helps you get more revenue with higher pageviews.

To think of good content strategy for your website, sit down and ask yourself these questions:

1) What is the goal of my website?
2) What are the products I’m selling that people would be interested in?
3) What is the current affinity they have with my brand?
4) Would posting content about my products and the various ways they are used help in attracting new visitors to my website?
5) What kind of content that I can post? Videos about my products? Link to articles that mention my products?
6) Fan photos and story submissions about my products/website?
7) Can I link to relevant stories about my products and services?

If you’re stumped, you can always invite your colleagues to a brainstorming session about content strategy for your website or blog. Ask for feedback, and regularly engage in conversation with your readers in the comments. No one likes a hit and run poster, and you need to give your readers a reason to come back and read more of the content you put on your website.