Content is King - Slow Learners

**John Scott** · 06-03-2004, 12:54 AM

Quote:

But the simple fact is, if you build a quality site people will link to it.

http://www.chrispian.com/item/246

He seems to be saying that content is king because people link to good content - so it sounds like he's actually admitting that links are king insofar as he is just promoting content as a way to generate - drum roll - links.

**John Scott** · 06-03-2004, 01:21 AM

If we are to do this discussion (debate) once more, there should be some clarity to begin with.

First, "content is king" is an entirely vague and useless statement when it is not used with a qualifier.

There are a few qualifiers that people should be attaching to the statement when they say it, and depending on the qualifier the meaning changes dramatically.

1. Content is King for Search Engine Ranking
Commonly used in this way, these people believe that you get search engine rankings either by:

A. "Content SEO" - i.e., H1 tags, optimized body text, keyword density, etc.

Or

B. Generating a lot of pages of content which then draw in incidental traffic.

Addressed this here:
http://www.internet-marketing-resear...topic4208.html
&
http://www.internet-marketing-resear...utra45717.html
&
http://www.v7n.com/pagerank-wins.php

There other argument is...

2. Content is King For Sales

People say, if you want to sell stuff, you can't just put the product up and place a "Buy Now" button next to it.

I addressed that in an article a few months ago:

Quote:

One application of the concept that Content is King is used in marketing discussions. To quote:

On the Internet Content is king and it always will be.... The information on a website is its content, generally the more useful and interesting content a website has the more successful it will be, because more people will want to visit it again and again, this is especially true if a website is constantly adding more and more content on a regular basis, be it articles, tutorials, news and opinion or whatever.

...if you gear your site to simply sell your product and do nothing else, you won't be very successful.
- David Callan, AKA Marketing (Added emphasis is mine.)

So, in order to sell your product on the Internet, we need "articles, tutorials, news and opinion"?

http://www.v7n.com/marketing-content.php

These are two very different arguments, but either way, content is not king.

chrispian · 06-03-2004, 12:13 PM

John,

Thanks for the invite to debate this. It should be interesting

First off, I agree that content must be qualified. The article of yours I was responding wasn't as clear on your idea of content. We could easily get off on a slippery semantic argument over what content is, but I think you and I are both referring more to the effect of whether content is more important than links. Does that sound like a fair judgement?

And let me say this right off the bat, I whole heartedly believe that links are extremely important when promoting your site. Depending on which day you ask me, I'd go as far as to say the single most important thing when promoting your site.

So, which comes first? Chicken or egg? Something to link to, or the link? My position is that a quality site will inspire linking to begin with. In my experience, certain types of sites foster linking better than others, like a forum or a news article. Something topical and of interest to people. People will link to things they like without being asked. Now, if you have good content you can ask people to link to it and they'll be more inclined to, than say, your affiliate page or product page.

My arguement isn't that links aren't important and If I gave that impression, I was wrong. I just think its easier to get links when you have something worthy of linking to, and, in my experience more people will link to an article than a product page. Now, you can complicate that by adding in paying for links, which I do advise from time to time. But, I can get an article written for $10-$50 depending on the topic and an incoming link from a related source could cost me between $15/mo to $50/mo. I've even seen text links going for over $1000/mo. It is more cost effective for me to write an article, or have one written and publish it in multiple places. I get pages which are relvant to my sites linking back to my sites and my cost is much better. Still, it's the link I'm after so you can see that I know links are important.

Everyone knows how hard it is to get links to an ecommerce venture. It's probably the hardest thing to get links back to. But you add some product reviews and some shopping tips and you've got an advantage over your competitor. You'll get links because of the content.

So, I say the links are vital in getting a top listing. But the content is the key factor in getting links.

How does my position sound?

SVB · 06-03-2004, 12:38 PM

I dont know what to believe. How come the nigritude ultramarine thread is not #1. with 245Million links from a directory, and thousands from elsewhere? The site in number one is FILLED with keyword spam

I, Brian · 06-03-2004, 01:39 PM

The problem with content first arguments is that unless you're offering something quite unique - as DigitalPoint did a while back - then getting links to your site the ordinary natural way is just so very slow.

And - the worst thing is - without links, you have no rankings - without rankings, who can find you to link to your site? It’s Catch 22.

The value of content is a fair one - notably in that it's good for snaring a range of lesser search terms. That's precisely why my business site has articles on it. However, links in themselves are absolutely king – they far surpass content.

If someone sets up a commercial site, on a general product, then at what rate should they realistically expect to gain links naturally through spontaneously linking? Maybe a couple of Geocities links in 6 months? Maybe a single DMOZ submission accepted within he same period? How many link directories can a site owner get listed in during that time?

Compare that to SEO link-building – every day I build a few thousand links for a number of client pages. It gives them the rankings for keywords that they pay me to get. Therefore they do good business to target customers and make a good profit - the link-building SEO is an investment that pays back much more than they put in.

Now if you want a successful online business, which route would you need to take? Natural slow linking, or SEO link-building?

Some people think SEO is about title tags and meta-tags and title use and text – but in reality commercial SEO is all about dreaming up every creative way to hit search engines with thousands of links within various concerns, such as wide IP range, theme, and overwhelming quantity.

That's where the real SEO is at - with the links. Everything else just pales beside them because at the end of the day it's targeted ranking that matters - that sells..

JERRY JULIANO · 06-03-2004, 01:44 PM

well im new to all of this but i think what chrispian is saying is you build a good site, with good content and that makes getting links a breeze... and not just waiting for them, but actually going out and getting them.

now brian, how do you go about building 1000's of links a day?

chrispian · 06-03-2004, 02:07 PM

Brian, you've got a good point. But, you're still building links to something, hence the content comes first claim. You can't link to nothing, or rather, it won't do any good.

Again, I'm after links, but I'm after links to my content (product, short story, photograph, whatever you want to call it), so I write an article that gets syndicated to a dozen sites. The article took me 20 minutes and with one submission to a newsgroup I've got 12 incoming links. I submit it again to a website that syndicates articles and now I've got another 10-20. And this is just the first time I submit it. Over time more users will syndicate this article and my total time expended is about an hour. With Google's preference towards authority pages, just getting general links isn't going to help quite as much as it used to. So topical links matter more. Linking to your "product x" page from your unrelated y" page won't do as much good as linking from a page that is directly about your product. I concentrate on getting links from sites on my topic and the easy way to do this is through having content already on the topic and syndicating free articles.

As Jerry pointed out, you don't just build a content site and wait for links. They will come, but too slowly to really help. But instead you build a quaility site and people will be more inclinded to link to it, naturally, and when asked.

Again, I am not debating the fact that links are paramount to getting good SE results. I'm just saying people won't link to "nothing", at least not without some serious bribery. People are on the web looking for something. A product, research, pictures, movies, music - content. They aren't searching for links. Links drive the traffic, but the end result is the destination and consumption of content. You go to the movies because you saw a nice trailer for it, but is the trailer more important than the movie? No, but it is very important to the success of the movie.

SVB · 06-03-2004, 02:13 PM

Content is what generates a successful site. The links bring people to the content. It goes back to JS'd first post, the 2 different views of "content is king". Links are king for SEO. You need links, and lots of them, to get good results in the search engines. You also need links to get visitors from other sites. There is no king. Without links you dont get the visitors. Without content, you dont get recommendations, you dont get mentioned around the web, people wont want to link, visitors wont stay.

**John Scott** · 06-03-2004, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

Thanks for the invite to debate this. It should be interesting

I'm glad you joined, Chrispian.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

First off, I agree that content must be qualified. The article of yours I was responding wasn't as clear on your idea of content. We could easily get off on a slippery semantic argument over what content is, but I think you and I are both referring more to the effect of whether content is more important than links. Does that sound like a fair judgement?

I try to define the "content" I'm addressing, insofar as I've been debating this "content is king" idea for over three years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

And let me say this right off the bat, I whole heartedly believe that links are extremely important when promoting your site. Depending on which day you ask me, I'd go as far as to say the single most important thing when promoting your site.

I'm glad we agree there. I've been checking into your sites, and it definately looked to me like you understand the importance of linkage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

So, which comes first? Chicken or egg? Something to link to, or the link? My position is that a quality site will inspire linking to begin with. In my experience, certain types of sites foster linking better than others, like a forum or a news article. Something topical and of interest to people. People will link to things they like without being asked.

Chrispian, I know precisely what you are saying, and it is semi-true. Good content may generate some links. Legitimately unique content generates links, ike the content found on CNN, the Register, BBC, wired.com, etc.

The problem is, most people neither have time to create the type of content that people would link to; nor do they have the capability to generate sincerely unique, legitimately useful content; nor would it be a wise financial investment to invest thousands of dollars in generating news or editorial articles of the calibre that would earn linkage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

My arguement isn't that links aren't important and If I gave that impression, I was wrong. I just think its easier to get links when you have something worthy of linking to, and, in my experience more people will link to an article than a product page.

But if I'm selling hosting, why would I want people linking to an article? I want links to www.v7inc.com - I want traffic that converts. I want to build a brand based on the quality of my hosting, not the hosting news and or opinions that do not serve to sell my hosting or build the V7 brand in the direction into which we want it built.

When I go into the Gap, I'm not confronted with news or opinion on the clothing industry. When I go into Nordstrom, I'm not offered a pamphlet explaining the history of footwear. When I buy a Pepsi from the vending machine, I never get a booklet detailing the state of the carbonated beverage industry. Why? Those would just detract from the point and dilute the brand.

Whenever webmasters try to concoct "unique content" they end up regurgitating some old crap that has been published elsewhere a thousand times or more.

I sell hosting. If you go to www.v7inc.com you'll see the hosting we sell. Every piece of text on that site is there for marketing reasons; none of it is there for SEO. Humans are my customers, not search engines. If I were to place redundant news and opnion on my website, it would simply detract from the purpose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

Now, you can complicate that by adding in paying for links, which I do advise from time to time. But, I can get an article written for $10-$50 depending on the topic and an incoming link from a related source could cost me between $15/mo to $50/mo. I've even seen text links going for over $1000/mo. It is more cost effective for me to write an article, or have one written and publish it in multiple places. I get pages which are relvant to my sites linking back to my sites and my cost is much better. Still, it's the link I'm after so you can see that I know links are important.

Yes, we both agree that links are important. So it is a matter of how you generate those links that we are debating, and this is somewhat of a new debate. At least, compared to the "content and content alone - not links - are king" debate.

I can't get articles written for $10 to $50. At least, not the type of articles I want on my websites. It is more cost effective for me to go directly after the links. But either way, we are both after links.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

Everyone knows how hard it is to get links to an ecommerce venture. It's probably the hardest thing to get links back to.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Asking for links for ecommerce sites is like pulling teeth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

But you add some product reviews and some shopping tips and you've got an advantage over your competitor. You'll get links because of the content.

Those would have to be some damn good product reviews and shopping tips. I know of some websites - content websites nonetheless - with great, unique content. But even with that great, unique content, they still aren't generating enough links to compete with the websites that go out and buy thousands of links.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

So, I say the links are vital in getting a top listing. But the content is the key factor in getting links.

How does my position sound?

It sounds pretty good. I think our difference of opinion is just a fraction of a degree.

Cheers.

**John Scott** · 06-03-2004, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unrealfragmaster

I dont know what to believe. How come the nigritude ultramarine thread is not #1. with 245Million links from a directory, and thousands from elsewhere? The site in number one is FILLED with keyword spam

A couple things to remember.

One:

Quote:

245 million links from a directory.

After the first couple dozen, the rest really don't matter that much. They are filtered out.

Two:

The competing sites also have thousands of inbound links. IMR is not the only page using mass linking and anchor text top compete.

Three:

The benefits of links are not immediate. Keyword density is immediate. Links are a long term strategy to gain top rankings.

Four:

There are other factors, such as the age of the page. Our page is brand new.

JERRY JULIANO · 06-03-2004, 09:11 PM

you know i was wondering the same thing.. all the top sites have the negritude word, then they have it backwards, then they repeat and repeat.
Now i may be a newbie but i thought you weren't supposed to repeat keywords, ect more than 3 times.

How are they getting around it?

And john, great explanation to why links are a long term solution, im on your side with that argument.

al2six · 06-03-2004, 09:28 PM

i'd say that having useful content is a great benefit. why? because thats just about the only way to get an unreciprocated link. link exchanges help, but they help more if you don't have to link back to the other site

**John Scott** · 06-03-2004, 09:30 PM

Quote:

How are they getting around it?

The keyword filters, according to a source I trust, only apply to keywords that are searched for XXX number of times a day. That's why you can keyword spam (high density) your way to the top for a non-competitive keyword, but can't for a highly used search term.

Once Google updates that database, "Nigritude Ultramarine" might be included in that list and those pages just might be filtered.

RonHollingsworth · 06-03-2004, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

So, which comes first? Chicken or egg? Something to link to, or the link? My position is that a quality site will inspire linking to begin with. In my experience, certain types of sites foster linking better than others, like a forum or a news article. Something topical and of interest to people. People will link to things they like without being asked. Now, if you have good content you can ask people to link to it and they'll be more inclined to, than say, your affiliate page or product page.

Yeah but how long does that take? Why would one "want" to wait months or years to get enough people to link to it? I'd rather be proactive.

awall19 · 06-03-2004, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnScott

The keyword filters, according to a source I trust, only apply to keywords that are searched for XXX number of times a day. That's why you can keyword spam (high density) your way to the top for a non-competitive keyword, but can't for a highly used search term.

I wish I had all the sources you do.

**John Scott** · 06-03-2004, 10:42 PM

If only I was still interested in SEO, I might make more use of the sources I have.

I, Brian · 06-04-2004, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrispian

Brian, you've got a good point. But, you're still building links to something, hence the content comes first claim. You can't link to nothing, or rather, it won't do any good.

Indeed - the usual "content" argument is that a lot of the ranking should rely on on-page elements - titles, text, headings, etc. And I've tried the spontaneous linking route and it doesn't acttually work very well unless your content is very well sought after.

As for article submission, though - watch out for the duplicate content filter devaluing such links - a couple of articles at www.seo-lab.com have PR0 apparently because of this - check out Bob Wakfer's article "Content and the new Google algorithm" for a possible example of this.

chrispian · 06-04-2004, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonHollingsworth

Yeah but how long does that take? Why would one "want" to wait months or years to get enough people to link to it? I'd rather be proactive.

I never suggested waiting. I suggested both. Content will inspire people to link without asking and it will make it much easer to ask for links. I ask for links every single day. I actively seek links contstantly, in fact, feel free to link to