So first, what do I mean by good content? I mean that the articles, posts, and the things you talk about on your site should be four things: (1) unique, (2) useful, (3) enjoyable, and (4) frequently updated.
Unique
If your content isn't unique, then people don't have to come to your site to see it. They can go to a different site that has the same basic content. So when you create content for your site, make sure it's something unique that can't be found all over the Web. Then people will come to your site for that content.
Useful
If your content isn't useful, then it doesn't really serve a purpose. Maybe that's a good question to ask yourself when creating content--what is the purpose of this content? Is it to answer a question that people have? Is it to gather a lot of relevant links or ideas from several different places into one article? If your content is useful, people will read it.
Enjoyable
I like to read articles and posts that are entertaining and/or interesting. Is your article funny, or does it talk about an interesting topic? Write articles that people will enjoy reading.
I think some of the spelling/grammar/layout rules fall into this category too. If your spelling or grammar is bad, it can be distracting. Edit your article before you post it. If the layout is a huge block of unending text, people won't even start reading. Split it up into sections with headings and perhaps some images.
Frequently Updated
Keep your content fresh. Keep adding new content. If you have a blog, try to post often so that you don't lose your readers. People will stop coming to your blog if you don't keep posting on it. On sites other than blogs, keep adding new articles, tutorials, or whatever your content is. New content keeps people coming back, and it opens up new pages to be indexed by search engines.
Here's an example of a blog that I've been visiting lately because it has good content. It's called the Freelance Folder. The subject material is very relevant and useful to me as a freelance web designer. The links that they post to other articles and blogs are also very useful. And most of the posts are fairly interesting.
So I hope you've learned a thing or two about content and how it fits in with search engine optimization. In summary, if you have good content, people will read it.
2 comments:
What if you don't want high SEO? Is there anything special you can do if you just want family memebers and friends viewing your blog? I've had a picture that was on my blog copied and placed on another web site. Is there a way to prevent this?
For Blogger you can go into "Settings" in your account and change a few things. In basic settings you can make your blog unlisted and also not crawlable by search engines.
If you know exactly who you want to see your blog you can go into permissions and set blog readers to "only people that I choose". You'll need to know their email addresses though.
For the copying of pictures issue, I've used a script in the past that makes it so people can't right click on your site. It can't stop everyone from getting your pictures, but it'll stop some. An example of this type of script is here:
No Right Click Script
You can put the script in Blogger by going to Layout -> Add a Page Element -> HTML/Javascript. Just paste the code in and you're done.
Post a Comment