Why Article Content Really is King

Optimizing your Blog - Why your article content matters.

This may shock some of you but your content has more to do with your search engine page rankings than any other factor - period. It has become increasingly clear that Google has tweaked it's algorithm in this direction for some time now and despite how many backlinks you have or what kind of pagerank you achieve - your content is the overriding determinant in how well your pages get ranked in the searches.

How do I know this?

I have been experimenting for some time now using SEO techniques, backlinking strategies, website design, blog design, hosting platforms, black hat, grey hat, white hat and every other kind of gimmick, trick and sorcery I know of and the inescapable conclusion is this - my best performing sites to date are all low PR, low age simple blogs either hosted here on blogspot or on my own domains. Most have few backlinks and none have any high PR backlinks. By "best performing" I mean simply that these blogs have the most pages ranked on pages 1-3 in the SERP's for the keywords I have targeted and hence they pull in the most free traffic.

Does this surprise you?

I admit that I was surprised at first but have come to see the pattern developing. Google has one overriding goal - give the end user (the searcher or reader) the exact information they are looking for and compared to a few years ago they are achieving this in spades. When you search for something today on Google you usually find exactly what you are looking for. In days past you had to sift through a lot of garbage before finding what you wanted. How Google has achieved this is a credit to the "Brains" behind their engine and while most internet marketers have grumbled and whined over the changes that have crippled their former empires I have come to relish these changes. And so should you.

What this now means.

Google has leveled the playing field for everyone. In the past the folks who made money online had all the resources and knowledge necessary for gaming the engines. Newcomers had a steep learning curve and in most cases didn't stand a chance of reaching the top pages in the SERP's. That has now changed. Anyone can get top ranking by doing what Google wants you to do and you don't need deep pockets to do it.

So what exactly does Google want you to do?

Produce good quality content. Original content.

Anything else? Nope... not really but you can help yourself out by producing it in a search engine friendly way which I will explain shortly.

Over the past few months I have created a number of niche blogs ranging from shoes to recipes for cooking fish. All of them were indexed within 2-3 days by Google. All of them had traffic within a week of creation. 1 blog had traffic 26 minutes after I created it. All of them have pages on the 1st page of the SERP's. Most got there within 2 weeks. Those with less competition got higher ranking faster.

The blog that got indexed and sent traffic in 26 minutes floored me but it also told me that what I was doing was all that needed to be done. The blog btw is in a hugely competitive market but the keyword I targeted was not optimized by others. In case you're wondering it was "how to cook (a certain type of fish)". A small niche to be certain but I get 30 - 40 visitors a day for it. This might not sound like much but I have added a lot more pages to the blog all optimized for related keywords and the blog is now pulling in 200 plus visits a day and I make $3-$4 daily from adsense and have made 4 affiliate sales. The blog is just over a month old.

So what is my system?

This is where I am supposed to hit you up with a sales pitch for my ebook. Send me money and I'll tell you. Lucky for you I'm too lazy to bother with setting all of that up and writing the book so I'll just tell you.

Here it is.

Create your blog using your main keyword in your Title.

Write your first post using your main keyword in the post Title, the first paragraph and use it again in the last sentence of the post.

Link the post Title back to your blog.

Don't over use your keyword in the main content of your post but try and use 5 or 6 related keywords a couple of times each throughout your post. If you are talking about "Fishing Recipes" then use related terms like "trout", "perch", "bass" and so on in your text. This tells the search engine that your content is on topic and makes your page easier to categorize. Think of it this way. If you are trying to get ranked for "Car Insurance" and all you write about in your content is "Car Insurance" then you will get categorized under "Car Insurance" and ranked about 2 million. If you mention several models and makes of cars in your post and several types of insurance plans available then you will get categorized for not only "car Insurance" but for all the more specific terms as well. It is these specific terms that will get higher rankings and all of them will boost your main keyword's ranking in the process.

Each new post should have your blog's main keyword in it but you want to write each new post on a specific sub topic of your main keyword. If my blog's main keyword is "Fishing Recipes" then each page will concentrate on a different fish and recipe. In time you will build up your main keyword while getting indexed for highly specific or targeted sub keywords or "long tails" as they are known.

Post at least three times a week for the first two months.

Do not add adsense or advertising or affiliate products to your blog for at least a month after getting indexed. If you do you will slow down your rankings or lose position on the SERP's. By not monetizing your blog you appear to be a credible source of information for the search engines. You can add this later but expect to see at least a slight drop in your rankings when you do. I have tested this extensively and can say without a doubt that you will always rank higher without monetization.

Have an "about me" section which gives your name, address and contact info. This makes you more credible. The more info you give the better although most people do not want to do this. This is not mandatory as you won't be penalized for not doing it. You will rank better if you do is all.

That's it for on page SEO

Now for off page SEO.

Get indexed.

To do this don't bother submitting your site to the search engines or directories. Waste of time and quite frankly you don't need to.

I use a link from a PR7 site to get indexed immediately. Most of you won't have this option so do the next best thing. Put your link on a high PR site. How? Submit an article to ezine articles (PR6). The bots crawl it several times daily. When it gets crawled, your article gets crawled and the bot follows your link all the way to your new blog. You can also set up a page (lens) on Squidoo for the same results.

It might take 2-3 days before you actually see it indexed on the search engines but this is only because they can be slow to update their results. When you do see it you will notice that the blog was actually picked up a few days earlier.

Submitting to Propeller (formerly netscape) also works just as well.

You are just about done. All that is left is to boost your pages up the search engine rankings. This is done by obtaining a few decent backlinks.

How?

Articles. I know you hate writing but there is some work involved in making money online.

For each post you write on your blog you should write 2 to 3 similar but not duplicate articles emphasizing the same keywords and submit them to different article directories. Start with Ezine articles and GoArticles. There are hundreds of article directories out there and you can find them with a little Google search. Use the highest PR sites first. Each time your article is picked up and posted on someone else's site you get a little link juice back to your blog. Don't write crap. Make your articles useful and compelling - people will want to use them for their own readers. Don't just put your link in the Author's box - this gets left off when people only post a snippet of your article on their site. This is when they only use your first paragraph and then put a link back to the original article so readers can read the rest if they choose. Put your link in the first sentence of the article using your keyword as the anchor text.

Note: If you can't write your own stuff or need help may I suggest you check out The Writer's Manifesto - a great site run by a wonderful person by the name of Monika Mundell. If you need someone to write for you then see her freelance site Monika Mundell.com


Anything else?

Nope.

This is all I have done recently and it works like a charm. It works because I have concentrated on giving Google good quality original content. They reward me by ranking my pages high in the SERP's. I outrank about.com, Squidoo, wikipedia and a host of high PR sites with my 1-2 month old blogs for one main reason. The content on my pages are more optimized and relevant to the subject matter than what the competition has produced on their pages. I don't have PR or many useful links so what else could it be. The simple fact is that your content will win out over PR if you write quality.

A note on quantity.

I am not positive but I am beginning to believe that quantity also has a great deal to do with this as well. I don't mean how many pages but rather how much I write on each subject. It appears that the more exhaustive I am the better. I tend to write long and extensive articles. Most bloggers write snippets. From Google's point of view who gives the most information - a 250 word article on a single topic or a 3000 word article on the same topic but also includes info on relevant topics. Would Google rank Joe Bloggers 1000 word post on "war and Peace" as more relevant than some old Russian dudes 2 million word post on "War and Peace"? Not likely. Now having said that keep your reader in mind always. The reader wants info but probably doesn't want to spend all week reading it. There is a fine balance to be had between giving lots of info and too much info.

On that note...

Try it out.

It works.

Grizzly