From free for free

So Court made a post this week where he changed his mind on the belief that content is NOT king. This is a pretty big flip from his previous view. He made a post a while back with a strong stance that content is NOT king. Well, this flip flop might leave people confused. I think this is most frustrating to those who have been reading MMO / IM / SEO blogs for a while and see people constantly debating: What is King?

Well I think the problem is that nothing is king. Why do we need to approach SEO in this simplistic mindset where we must pick one aspect to be the dominating king? It just leads to debates about content vs links and which is the most important. The dangerous part about these debates is that they’re being spectated by “newbies”, which are those with enough knowledge about IM and SEO to hurt themselves. They are left confused and the really dangerous part about these simplistic explanations is that many take “Content is NOT King” as content doesn’t matter, which could not be further from the truth. So I thought I’d jump in and give my 2 cents on the role I think links and content play.

I’m not in full disagreement with Court, and I understand where he is coming from, but I still believe CONTENT IS NOT KING.

So let’s discuss content for a moment. Ask yourself these questions: Can content rank for a word even if it does not include the word? Can spam reach top rankings (even if only temporary)? Can you rank content that is false? Can you write content and rank even if you’re a bad writer?

The answer to all of those questions is: YES
You do not have to have good content to rank. Content is not the key to GETTING ranked.

BUT STOP RIGHT HERE

This does not mean content does not matter. This does not mean you should produce junk. This does not mean you should scrap content and use content generators. Your site will be short lived if you do.

Content plays a few roles. First and foremost, it is copy for your visitors to read. We spend all this time trying to get ranked, but why? We do it so humans will visit our sites, not just Google bots. So when that human gets to your site, you need to provide them with content. Second, content communicates to Google and other bots what your page is about through keywords and related keywords. This allows you to rank for short and long tail keywords. Content that has been optimized can rank for a variety of long tail terms, which can play a significant role in traffic. Content also makes your site useful and not spam.

So what does content not do? It will not get you indexed in Google. It will not get you ranked in Google (unless really low competition long tails). It will not submit itself to Digg. It will not make you money alone. It will not dominate competitive niches alone. This is why people say “content doesn’t matter”. It isn’t literal. It simply means, content won’t rank itself. Many wonderful bloggers produce great content and go no where. That’s because nobody sees their content.

So when teaching people about SEO, I think it is important to claim no absolutes, especially in the business of SEO. This industry is constantly changing, so don’t jump on any one thing and call it king. All factors are important and play an overall role in online success. You can write spam content, build links, and get ranked. BUT, someone will report you and you’ll get banned. Links got you ranked, but your content can get you deindexed. You can write excellent content, build no links, and get no traffic. You can have great content, spam your links, and get deindexed. So the point is to understand that content is not king, but neither are links. The success of links depends on content and the success of your content depends on your links.

So although its fun to talk about some topics and debate them, the affect can be dangerous. Some people take them in a way that can get their site in serious trouble. Links, social media, and content all play a role in the success of your site. The truth is that content doesn’t really matter in terms of getting ranked. It WILL matter if you get reported though (or want repeat visitors). It is smart to tell people to practice white hat tactics, because that keeps newbies safe. Teaching you to produce bad content, before you fully understand the impact is dangerous. Unless you have a solid background in SEO, programming, servers, and the internet; I would not suggest playing with black hat. Until you get to the point where you don’t need to read my blog, you should not produce sites with bad content, leave it to the black haters who are willing to risk their sites.

Most of the ranting above was simply about the role of content in RANKING your site. If your site is white hat, and you want to build a following, your content is VERY important. To HUMANS, content is the HIGHLY important. Consider your site a business and your content is your product; with that analogy it is easy to see why good content can have a tremendous effect on your growth, especially flagship sites.

So even though Court has taken a step back, I standing firm. I believe nothing is king. I believe content plays an important role. I believe that getting links will get me ranked.

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