Monday, March 21, 2011

Ignore SEO, just produce good content

Ignore SEO, just produce good content "

Producing content just to satisfy SEO targets and pressures is dangerous because that’s when you get into the realms of publishing content for content’s sake and clearly, Google doesn’t like that given its recent Farmer Update.


More importantly, your website users don’t like that. While SEO clearly has its place, it shouldn't get in the way of producing great content... 

I was going to start this blog writing about why having quality content is so important and I’m still going to do that, I just hope I don’t eat my words in a few weeks time.


My opinion on content is and always will be this: if you’re in the content publishing business, always have content that you genuinely believe is interesting, that is useful, that is informative. It has to have a purpose, else why are you doing it?


Don't publish content for content’s sake


No-one can deny it’s easy to get pushed along by ideas that get chucked at you from within a business but sometimes you have to push back.I completely believe you shouldn’t be producing content for SEO; you should be producing it because it adds something to users of your website.


For example, say you’ve dropped in the rankings for one of your target keywords; the business’ automatic reaction is to want more content around that keyword. But, I’d fight against that, unless there is some relevance in producing content around said keyword. 


Producing content just to satisfy SEO targets and pressures is dangerous because that’s when you get into the realms of publishing content for content’s sake and clearly, Google doesn’t like that given its recent Farmer Update. More importantly, your website users don’t like that.


Google is obviously punishing content farms, so don’t be one. If you feel you’ve strayed into this way of publishing content then seriously think twice about what you’re doing and why.


Put yourself in your customer’s or reader’s shoes


For me it’s simple. What is it you want to see when you visit a website? And are you doing that?


For example, if you sell car insurance then have a 30 second video on how to cut the cost of car insurance. That’s useful isn’t it? Don’t send customers an email with content they can read in a thousand other websites, that’s just insulting. Give them something they can’t get elsewhere. Give them quality.


Whatever you do when deciding what content to generate, don’t just do it for SEO. Don’t write an article and stuff it full of keywords because you have keyword targets to hit or have committed to producing x amount of articles about your products.


Some SEO agencies believe this is the way forward, I don’t. I believe this forces you to produce content that’s not necessarily relevant or interesting. Dreaming up ideas just to tick SEO targets isn’t how content is supposed to be produced. That’s not how the best publishers do it, and it’s not how you should do it either.


Getting the right people to help you produce content is also part of getting the content production process right, but that’s a discussion all in its own and one for another blog.

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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Another Facebook infographic, and how the world is obsessed with Facebook

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.


Online Schools has created an infographic showing the far-reaching hands/tentacles of Facebook, and how the social networking website has become more than just a website. Some of these facts are quite an eye opener. Inspired by the infographic, Alex Trimpe created the video you can see above, while the infographic itself is embedded after the jump.



Are We Obsessed with Facebook?
Via: Online Schools, LaughingSquid




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Disqus for ully's online marketing

Disqus for ully's online marketing