Content, content, content

It’s all about the 3Cs: content, content, content.

I’m often telling clients the same thing. Go out there and create good content, do good work and the rest will follow.

Of course as a matter of doing good work, designers or developers will probably always create a site that adheres to web standards.  This makes sense and is part of doing a good job.  Latteperday websites for example always use web standard W3C code whether it’s in the HTML or CSS – and this is something to be proud of for sure.

But to clients though, this isn’t important.  It’s often too technical to go into the details and knowing that a site is constructed the right way is enough.  Knowing that their site will look great on an iPad or iPhone, work consistently across browsers and computers and be easier for people and search engines to access and “read” is the benefit of creating a site using web standards.

Sometimes site owners and clients can get too narrow-focused on the minor details of the code for each page and making sure each ounce of SEO juice is squeezed out of every page as possible. “am I using the right title tags” or “shouldn’t this code but done in a different way”.  This is fine, but as I said, most designers worth their salt will make sure this in place from day 1 anyway.  Not everyone does this though so we like to tell people about it.  But it’s not really the most important thing.

The most important thing

What’s more important is creating great, useful content that adds value to people’s lives.  Content that gives people the information they need and when and where they need it.

That’s Google’s job afterall.  Their business aim is to give people the information they need.  They right information and quickly.  If they don’t or can’t, they have no business.

If your site doesn’t have any relevant or useful information on a particular topic, they’re not going to serve that page to their client – the web searcher.  It doesn’t matter if the site is well coded in W3C or Klingon.

What does matter is pure high quality content which is well written and valuable.

Great examples would be news sites, well made blogs and information sites.

In the same light, poorly designed sites with SEO mistakes can rank really well with fantastic content as Matt said in the video. And, likewise, greatly designed sites with poor content can have a low rank.

The Takeaway

Content is King for ranking well in Google and Co and don’t underestimate it.

Sure speedy rock solid and reliable hosting; web standard code; great design; on site optimisation all help and latteperday makes sure all sites have this as standard.  This gives people a great head start and foundation to build on from day 1.  So when you build your site, make sure you have all these elements in place.  Ask your designer about it.

As time goes on, it’s the sites that also have the great content that will float to the top.  This is your job as the site owner.  You know your business and field of expertise the best so go out there and put great content on your site.

Great content combined with these other elements will ensure you have a rockin’ well ranked site.