The web pages actually at the top of Google have
only one thing clearly in common: good writing.
Don't get so caught up in the usual SEO sacred
cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, frames, and
JavaScrïpt, that you forget your site's content.
I was recently struck by the fact that the
top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently
much better written than the vast majority of
what one reads on the web.
Of course, that shouldn't be a surprise,
considering how often officials at Google
proclaim the importance of good content. Yet
traditional SEO wisdom has little to say about
good writing.
Does Google, the world's wealthiest media
company, really ignore traditional standards of
quality in the publishing world? Does Google,
like so many website owners, really get so
caught up in the process of the algorithm that
it misses the whole point?
Apparently not.
Most Common On-the-Page Website Content
Success Features
Whatever the technical mechanism, Google is
doing a pretty good job of identifying websites
with good content and rewarding them with high
rankings.
I looked at Google's top five pages for the
five most searched-on keywords, as identified by
WordTracker on June 27, 2005. Typically, the top
five pages receive an overwhelming majority of
the traffïc delivered by Google.
The web pages that contained written content
(a small but significant portion were image
galleries) all shared the following features:
• Updating: frequent updating of
content, at least once every few weeks, and more
often, once a week or more.
• Spelling and grammar: few or no
errors. No page had more than three misspelled
words or four grammatical errors. Note
• Paragraphs: primarily brief (1-4
sentences). Few or no long blocks of text.
• Lists: both bulleted and numbered,
form a large part of the text.
• Sentence length: mostly brief (10
words or fewer). Medium-length and long
sentences are sprinkled throughout the text
rather than clumped together.
• Contextual relevance
SEO Bugbears and Sacred Cows
A hard look at the results shows that,
practically speaking, a number of SEO bugbears
and sacred cows may matter less to ranking than
good content.
• PageRank. The median PageRank was 4.
One page had a PageRank of 0. Of course, this
might simply be yet another demonstration that
the little PageRank number you get in your
browser window is not what Google's algo is
using. But if you're one of those people who
attaches an overriding value to that little
number, this is food for thought.
• Frames. The top two web pages listed
for the most searched-on keyword employ frames.
Frames may still be a bad web design idea from a
usability standpoint, and they may ruin your
search engine rankings if your site's linking
system depends on them. But there are worse ways
you could shoot yourself in the foot.
• JavaScript-formatted internal links.
Most of the websites use JavaScrïpt for their
internal page links. Again, that's not the best
web design practice, but there are worse things
you could do.
• Links
• Originality: a significant number of
pages contained content copied from other
websites. In all cases, the content was
professionally written content apparently
distributed on a free-reprint basis. Note: the
reprint content did not consist of content
feeds. However, no website consisted solely of
free-reprint content. There was always at least
a significant portion of original content,
usually the majority of the page.
Recommendations
• • Make sure a professional writer, or at
least someone who can tell good writing from
bad, is creating your site's content,
particularly in the case of a search-engine
optimization campaign. If you are an SEO, make
sure you get a pro to do the content. A shocking
number of SEOs write incredibly badly. I've even
had clients whose websites got fewer conversions
or page views after their SEOs got through with
them, even when they got a sharp uptick in
unique visitors. Most visitors simply hit the
"back" button when confronted with the
unpalatable text, so the increased traffïc is
just wasted bandwidth.
• • If you write your own content, make sure
that it passes through the hands of a skilled
copyeditor or writer before going online.
• • Update your content often. It's important
both to add new pages and update existing pages.
If you can't afford original content, use
free-reprint content.
• • Distribute your content to other websites
on a free-reprint basis. This will help your
website get links in exchange for the right to
publish the content. It will also help spread
your message and enhance your visibility. Fears
of a "duplicate content penalty" for
free-reprint content (as opposed to duplication
of content within a single website) are
unjustified.
In short, if you have a mature website that
is already indexed and getting traffïc, you
should consider making sure the bulk of your
investmënt in your website is devoted to its
content, rather than graphic design, old-school
search-engine optimization, or linking
campaigns.
About The Author
Joel Walsh's archive of web business articles is
at the website of his business, UpMarket
Content, a
website content providerr.
