Content is light. No one will argue with that premise. Relevant content is at the top of the list for SEO. Recently, Google has confirmed that page speed is a factor in their algorithm. In the race towards SERP success, every advantage must be exploited.

For a commercial website, a few tenths of a second may mean much more than anyone could predict. A few tenths could mean a marked increase in revenues. Speed can mean gold in the Olympics and speed can mean sales because of content. Weighing down a page with graphics, images and videos may be detrimental. Content soars.

Good for us.

“In the time it takes you to read this sentence, you can either make a new customer or lose the opportunity. We write for that quick decision”
- K Richard Douglas

Solution Content thinks long and hard about the content we produce for your website. The several days that we take to create your content is designed for that short period that you have to capture your site visitor’s interest and imagination.

They can’t abandon your site after reading the first sentence on your homepage; they have to keep reading and buy your product or service.  That’s our mission.

Does it seem like some commentators who are seen as SEO experts sound like they were in the Google meeting when they outlined their new algorithm?  We hear about exactly the methods necessary to achieve first-position, first-page results as if these ‘experts’ know all the details of the Google algorithm.  The truth is; they don’t.

Then there are the ‘backlink people.’ Yes, we know that there is value to backlinks and Google has not shied away from admitting that much.  But, are backlinks alone enough to launch any blog or website to immediate stardom?

There are legitimate and less-legitimate ways to get backlinks and there are people making boatloads of money promoting their methods to achieve both.

Some people promote their ‘secret’ super duper method for achieving thousands of backlinks, but some of these look like pyramid schemes when you begin to dig.

The fact remains that content is still one of the best ways to achieve positive rankings and search results and the resultant ability for customers to find your site. Quality content promotes your company’s brand like nothing else can. It speaks to the needs of your prospective customers. It matches your product or service’s benefits with those needs.

The experts don’t know everything.  They may realistically only know a sliver of what Google’s criteria or the other search engines’ methods actually are.  The best approach then is to make use of many best practices. High quality backlinks, high quality content, lots of content, solid coding, sitemaps, relative content, Meta tags and great titles are all part of a good start. Bringing value to site visitors is very important.

And then there are effective conversion methods, but that is a subject for another day. What may be of the greatest value to your website is to find someone who understands what will work and what won’t. Not someone who is stuck on one idea that is of questionable value.

Remember, no one really knows the exact details of the Google algorithm. As in Gestalt theory, the whole is the sum of its parts.  Finding a marketer or consultant who is willing to work with the many parts is the closest you can get to the whole.

You can reach us through our contact form here.

My wife is a webmaster and she just doesn’t get the whole social networking thing. I mean, she really doesn’t get it. Especially as it relates to companies. Why, she questions, would a company want to use a service like Twitter?

Why indeed?

Social networking is all about relationships. As a rule, in the past, big companies seemed very distant to their customers and clients. PR firms could work hard to put the best public face on the company, but for many outside the company, connecting with the company was difficult at best and impossible in most cases. Much of what the company would want its potential customers and clients to know was never available or communicated.

Then, social networking appeared on the Internet. At first, it seemed like one more way for individuals to stay in touch and meet new friends. Twitter allowed people the ability to tell the story of their daily lives in succinct soundbites. (or wordbites, if you will………you heard the term here first…at least applied to Twitter). Facebook and MySpace allowed people the ability to create a promotion page reflecting their likes, dislikes and a glimpse into their lives.

It wasn’t long before some smart marketing and PR people saw the value of social networking and its implications for companies of all sizes. They reasoned that if you really want to connect with your customers and potential customers, this was a very personal way of doing so. In the process, social networking crossed the line from being about individuals to being about companies also. Companies also learned that they could create a ‘buzz’ about their products or services and that the buzz was infectious……….in a good way.

While social networking sites are a great source of promotion and public relations, they are also the perfect non-traditional method for people to connect with companies. Those same foreboding mega-giants that seemed unapproachable, are suddenly, right there. You really don’t have to understand Tweeting…….just the concept of connecting.

So when my wife questions ‘why,’ she just needs to look at Plaxo or LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter or Youtube or a couple of dozen others, and ask ‘what.’ What are these companies saying and what are consumers saying in return? That’s what it’s all about.