The Basics of Blogging and Web Site Creation - Part One: Content Is King
1. The Basics of Blogging and Web
Site Creation - Part One: Content
Is King
2. My fellow writers at the Absolute Writers Forum (known
lovingly as the AW Water Cooler or just Cooler) are the
reason for these next series of articles so I wish to thank
them.
3. In the next few series of articles, I will try and deal with
some of the very basic technical jargon and skills that one
needs when facing this daunting world of web-site
creation, blogging and getting listed and noticed by the
Search Engines. Some of this I take from things I posted at
AW and others from my own articles on Web Creation and
still others from my own blog, Cobwebs Of The Mind.
4. Let us start with the few important factors that are
required today on the web. There are quadrillions of
articles on this, most very poorly written, but the message
is always the same.
5. On the web today, "content is king". But that is not all
their is to that rule. Let us change it a bit to fit the reality
of the web, search engines, and the sophisticated
algorithms being deployed by the search engine trinity of:
Google, Yahoo & MSN.
9. 1. You must have content - words, phrases, information -
on your web site.
10. 2. You should have "original" content on your web site.
This is content which either you have created or have
gotten permission to reproduce on your web site. It should
be "original". Copying content from a web site, and
putting it in your blog, where that content has been
reproduced in thousands of other web-sites, is not going
to help your Google ranking (and you may even be
penalized for it.) This does NOT mean that everything,
every single phrase and post and article you put up on the
web has to be original and not repeated elsewhere. What
it does mean though, is that the majority of your web site
or blog should be just that - YOURS.
11. 3. Your content should constantly grow. You should be
adding to it on a daily or bi-daily basis. Stagnant blogs and
web sites are noticed for being stagnant - dead. They drop
so fast in Search Engine (search engine) rankings you have
no clue! Web sites demand nurturing and work. They do
NOT run on auto mode. (Just look at how much time you
spend with your blog!)
13. Search Engines look for content. They have developed very
sophisticated algorithms to check content. To see if this
content is original, or they are coming across the millionth
time they have seen the same thing. This is all
mathematical btw. And this is NOT the only thing they
look that. (We will get to those other things in our next
posts). However, Content is critical. Lets give two
examples.
14. 1. Ever notice how fast some popular Forums get indexed
in the Search Engines. This is due to the fact that they
have an incredible amount of page hits, and that they exist
for POSTS. Posts on forums are ORIGINAL for the most
part. So engines look for the Content, forums have this,
they list them, they see original content - the forum moves
up the list, and thus more people find the forum in the
search, more people hit the forum pages, more "hits" and
"eyeballs" are registered back on the Search Engine
servers, and the forum keeps on moving up. The more hits
- by mathematics - the more posts. The more posts the
more original content. The more original content the
better the listing. The better the listing - the more people
find the forum. Getting the picture? A never-ending circle
of success.
15. 2. For those of you in doubt as to whether Search Engines
can "read" content just take a look at Adsense and
Adwords. When you go to a site with them, adverts are
fed out based upon the: 1: Content of the page you are on,
and 2) Your IP address to determine which country and
language you speak. Since I am in Israel, I am never
surprised if I hit a site say that is discussing a topic and has
adsense, and though this site is totally in English and
geared to people in New York City, some of the adsense
adverts are in Hebrew based upon the content of the page
I am on. The algorithm finds key words (more on those
later) and feeds out the adverts.
16. So our first lesson on Search Engines and ranking and all
that good stuff is about Content. Remember the rule.