SEO Lessons: Quality Content

17/12/09 posted by Liz Niland

When it comes to web design, there’s an acronym that often gets thrown around by those wanting to sound like they know what they’re talking about. This three letter word though, can help to make or break businesses by determining where a website - however pretty it may be - will rank in search engine results. Yes, I’m talking about SEO - otherwise known as Search Engine Optimisation. 



A magical art to some, a learned skill to others, whichever way you look at it, you should base some level of importance on what your business is doing to achieve it. Obviously someone that knows what they’re doing is best left in charge of your website’s SEO, and ideally, this will be something you should request from the very beginning of the web design process. While both on-page and off-page factors can be improved on an existing site, the best results generally come from websites that have in-built SEO considerations. 



Short of hiring a professional or redesigning your website though, there are some things you, as a website owner, can do to ensure your site puts its most optimised foot forward. Today we’ll be taking a look at the benefits of having quality content on your website.

Time and time again, we see websites full of spelling errors, poor grammar, not enough text, too much text, the list goes on... The best website content is that which not only works with your web design to complete an ideal user experience, but that also gives search engine “spiders” something to read. These so-called spiders are sent out from search engines to scan the content you provide on your site, which then contributes to the overall score, or rank, your page achieves. If the content is old and has already been seen by the spider, they will disregard it, negatively impacting your ranking. Similarly, if there is only minimal content on your primarily image-based website, there will be little available for the spider to read, thus deeming your pages of little worth. 



Getting the balance right between SEO-driven content and user-friendly content can be tricky but it is well worth the effort. The most successful websites are undoubtedly those that invest in the time and resources to get the ingredients just right. Relevance is key: timely, regularly updated content related to the key themes of the website will always help unravel the mysteries of search engine optimisation.