This is a question that is often asked by website owners.  I don’t know about you but I’m fed up of hearing “content is king”.  Writing good content all the time is not easy, you really have to know your subject and you’ve got to be motivated to do it.

Writing excellent content and getting good quality links are two of the most important things in SEO but also two of the most annoying and time consuming parts of the process of having a successful website.

But I’m afraid to say that having great content is the most important thing about your website, it’s as simple as that.  Recently I’ve been writing about new ways of learning and interaction with your audience.  With these new formats you can change the type of content and the context but you can’t change the quality.  The quality still has to be the best you can make it.

Stop Creating Your Content for Google

Google likes a lot of content, thin sites don’t stand up, apart from in certain niches where there are exceptional factors but as a general rule search engines have decided that more content means a site will be more use to the searching public.

There is also no doubt that creating good content for backlinks and therefore the ability to rank better in Google is good practice, but if you are only producing content to get backlinks then this method is flawed.  

Create content for user experience, write so your users get the most out of your website, so they keep coming back, so they are hungry for more of your information.  This way you will get get backlinks and receive good marks from Google for having a decent amount of content but you will more importantly be developing good relationships with the people who matter, visitors to your site. 

A solid business model never targets one attraction method, by creating your content only for Google you are falling into a trap that has one dimension.  You are vulnerable to whatever Google wants to do with you.

Far too many website owners rely on Google for their incomes.  Google can make or break these people, very often it breaks them.  Google can turn off your Adsense account so easily, and if Adsense is your main source of income for that site then you are in trouble.  Google can also decide to rank you lower than you used to, they have control.  In this situation content isn’t king, Google is, and your site is very vulnerable.

Content can however be master and commander if you produce quality.  It works on all fronts, it will get you solid backlinks, it will also get you loyal customers who want more of your great content and it will help you to build a brand.  When people are frequently typing your website address into their browsers and not going through Google or other search engines at all then you have succeeded.

If people can take something of value from your site, then you will take something of value from them, money, everyone will be happy and the only way to achieve that is through excellent content.

It isn’t just the internet where having the best content is so important, we just don’t talk about it in the same way.  Every business that has been very successful has produced something of quality that meets a group of people’s needs.  A newspaper isn’t successful without great content that is targeted to it’s audience, if it didn’t have great targeted content it would fail.  The same is true for websites and maybe even more so.

Is there any business or successful person that has been successful without having good content? let me know.