Content is the King.

The Importance of Content Explained

• Why is Content Important to a Search Engine?
• What Are Your Options for Content?
• What should be the characteristics of the content?
  

Why is Content Important to a Search Engine?

Search engines want to deliver the best results possible to their users. They want to give them the leading sites for a particular search term, that is their ultimate goal. If a search engine delivers the best possible results it goes a long way to gaining customer loyalty. This can be seen by the quick rise to fame of Google. I think we all agree for the most part that Google delivers excellent results and enjoys a huge fan base.

SEQ: What factors determine quality content?

Search engines keep track of everything, they probably know more about your site than you do. They know how long a visitor stays on your page or site, where they click to, how often your site gets bookmarked, how much new or updated content you have etc etc...you get the idea.

Logic says that any good web site should be updated with good content or resources, why else bookmark or return to a site that never changes?

What Are Your Options for Content?

I have listed a few different types of content you could potentially use on your site to improve your ranking results.

Writing Your Own Content

This is always important as unique content - content only your site offers - is scored very highly. A visitor to a site containing content they have never seen before tends to stay longer than a visitor who has seen the same content on 'n' number of other sites. This visitor is also more likely to bookmark your site and return in future. These are all important factors when a search engine is trying to determine the value of a sites content.

RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds are a very nice way of streaming valuable content to your site automatically. You can offer several types of content like news or sports headlines for example. This content again gives value to the user which can result in increased time spent on your site. It also helps your site remain updated with new content if implemented correctly.

Forum Boards for Discussions

Forum boards are a great way to keep visitors returning to your site if you are able to build a little "community". This will result in an ongoing source of unique and constantly updated content. When installing a forum board don't forget to use a search engine friendly version. This basically means a version that will allow the spider (info retriever) to easily navigate through the pages, without having long complicated query strings.

Visitor Polls

Polls are a good way to keep content updated and visitors returning. All you need to do is install a simple script and you are good to go.

Visitor Reviews

As per a site like Amazon you may choose to let your visitors submit reviews of products or services. Again, this will create fresh new content and increase visitor time.

What should be the characteristics of the content?

Well the first trick to creating good content for your website is to be sure that your content will have specific appeal to your target audience.
Your content should be easy to understand and use regular English as far as possible, if you've to use topic specific words that could cause trouble for some visitors make sure you explain them. To create content you simply write news and articles about the industry your product is in. This ensures that visitors who read your content are also the visitors that are likely to be interested in buying your product.
Remember before you publish new content always always check spelling and grammar. If your content has misspellings and poor grammar your website and company will appear unprofessional and people don't generally buy from companies they think are unprofessional.
Always reading all your content usually twice is enough to spot errors, also to make sure try and get some friends to proofread it for you.

On a final note, always try to update your content as much as possible as more people will become regular visitors and will be exposed to the products and services you offer. This is turn will equal more sales and profit for you and that is what it's all about.