Content Is King (or Queen, to be fair) — or so the pundits say. But what does that mean for your website?

I can tell you what it used to mean.  Pages and pages of keyword stuffed drivel, meaningless lines of poorly written penny-a-word repurposed, posted-all-over-the-web nonsense, and footers crammed full of lists of words that didn’t do a thing for the hapless visitor but did wonders for search engine results positioning. That was back when Google and the other search engine giants rewarded that kind of silliness.

Fast Forward to 2019

Over the past few years, Google has gotten tougher on content. Like really tough. It started with those cloned websites for real estate agents and multilevel marketers being penalized for their duplicate content. Ditto for the “lots of words that say nothing” content only landing pages of yore. Now Google is evaluating the authority and value of the words on your site. Google wants to see its relevance. Originality. Expertise.

The newest versions of Google’s search engines look for quality content that matches the searcher’s intent. They reward factors like the amount of time a visitor spends on a site or how many pages they visit because those factors indicate that the site was worth a click. On the other end of the spectrum, pages and sites that have mostly really short visits tend to drop in the rankings. “Not much to see here,” or so says the data.

The search engine spiders also compare the terms people use to get to a site with the content in general. Do the words convey a coherent message? Or are a few popular terms stuck in there out of context? Are there links to deeper content, or is this site pretty much a “one-page wonder?”  Do the title and headings work with the content? Or are they off the mark (or missing entirely)?

Google Never Tells All

Most of what we know about what Google wants and what they reward comes from hard-earned trial and error. Sure, they throw us a bone now and again, like with their MobileFirst Webinar from Google, but mostly it takes experience and testings and lots and lots of metrics and measurement to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what changed last Tuesday.

And yet…even with all of the rule changes, there are few things that will never fail when it comes to content. So are you ready? Here’s the secret. No matter what your website is offering or selling or sharing, SEO content must be:

• Relevant
• Well-written
• Unique to your site
• Updated and refreshed often
• Engaging
• Demonstrate topic expertise

Yes, it really is that simple. And that complex.