SEO for Traffic with Content vs. Ranking with Links
By
Joel Walsh,
a professional in the fields of copywriting and SEO
http://www.UpMarketSEO.com
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How
do you grow your search engine traffïc without adding
a single new link or making any changes to your
existing webpages?
It's
simple. Just add content.
Simply
having keyword-optimized pages of content on your
site won't rank you high for competitive search
engine keywords – that's a fact of life. But keyword-optimized
content can really bring in the traffïc for low-competition
and unique keywords. The low-competition and unique
keywords are typically longer multi-word variants
of the keyword. For instance, instead of "search
engine ranking," "ranking for search engine
traffïc niche keywords."
If
you have lots of pages of optimized content–and
you optimize well – all the search engine traffïc
from these low-competition keywords will really
add up. Plus, you'll usually get more repeat visitors
and type-in traffïc, too.
Just
picture this realistic example of traffic-building
with content vs. ranking-building with links. Company
A invests $5,000 for link-building in order to rank
for a competitive keyword. Company B invests the
same amount, only in content. Company A and Company
B: each start out on equal SEO footing: equally
old websites with the same amount and quality of
content, same content management systems, the same
PageRank and quantity, quality, and relevance of
inbound links.
Company
A's research reveals that $5000 is just the amount
needed to get on the first page of Google for a
target keyword that should deliver 100 unique visitors
per day if the site ends up in the first position.
They dutifully get inbound links optimized for that
keyword, following all SEO best practices. Three
months and $5,000 later, the site is stuck somewhere
toward the bottom of the second page of Google search
results for the target keyword. Six months later,
they've actually sunk a bit lower in the SERPs.
The good news is that the site is getting some traffïc
from the links built and from the lowly search engine
position, but nowhere near the 100 visitors/day
they were hoping for from search results.
Company
B, meanwhile, had content written around a long
list of keywords with little or no competition in
the search engines, using up-to-date search engine
copywriting techniques. They've been enjoying a
growing stream of visitors to their site almost
since the first page of content was added. Three
months later, the site's search engine traffïc has
grown by a hundred unique visitors per day, or 3,000
per month. Moreover, Company B's repeat visitor
traffïc has also jumped. Type-in traffïc has increased,
presumably as visitors forward the URLs of useful
pages to their friends. Page views are up, too,
not only from more repeat visitors and type-in visitors,
but also from first-time search visitors staying
longer and browsing more pages. Six months later,
the website's content has built a loyal following
on the net, generating even more repeat visitors.
The search engine traffïc is as good as it ever
was.
What
happened?
Pitfalls
of Link-Building for Search Engine Ranking
Company
A thought it had a fairly sure thing: build enough
optimized links for the keyword, taking care not
to trigger search engine penalties. Yet as they've
discovered, there is no sure thing when it comes
to search engine rankings:
-
Over-optimization penalty minefield.
The search engines, particularly Google and Yahoo!,
are very risk-averse when it comes to ranking
sites well for competitive keywords. On the whole,
they are perfectly willing to risk dropping several
good sites from top rankings in order to try to
keep one bad site out. They are constantly tweaking
their algorithms to identify sites whose link
structures are not indicative of a quality site.
In the process, plenty of good sites with good
SEO also get swept up. This risk of failure is
the inherent risk of SEO. True, most of the time,
a good site with good SEO does move to the top.
But in a large minority of cases, quality goes
unrewarded.
-
Competition
and the moving target. As Site A was
moving up the search engine results for its competitive
target keyword, so were the other sites. There
is no rest for the victorious when it comes for
SEO. The top sites for highly competitive keywords
are constantly building new optimized links. That's
why any SEO effort has to aim to do at least ten
percent better than the site currently in the
position it's targeting.
-
Lack
of keyword diversity. Too often, websites
with modest SEO budgets (and $5,000 is modest
when it comes to a competitive keyword) aim for
just a few keywords. Given all the potential pitfalls
of an SEO campaign, you need to be going after
ten or more target competitive keywords, and at
least another ten related but less competitive
keywords. That way, failure for a few keywords
won't scuttle the whole project. Meanwhile, search
engines look for diversity in targeted keywords,
so you get much more out of targeting a largër
group of keywords. If you can't afford to do this,
you're really better off not going after competitive
keywords. Sure, you might get those rankings.
But what happens if you've spent your budget and
still have little to show for it?
Meanwhile,
the fundamental advantage of pursuing low-competition
keywords is that, by definition, it's much closer
to being a sure thing.
Advantages
of Web Content SEO
-
Greater certainty. Not only is
a page of content extremely likely to bring in
search engine traffïc — unlike the similar investmënt
in links — it won't suddenly disappear. The sites
linking to you might stop anytime, or do something
to stop links' passing search engine value (such
as adding the "nofollow" tag or switching
to a search-engine-unfriendly content management
system).
-
Cost.
Traditionally, copywriting has been more expensive
than link-building. But that's changed. As "nofollow"
link-Scrooge-ry becomes more and more common,
and as paid and reciprocal links get downgraded,
the real cost of obtaining quality links increases.
Meanwhile, the copywriting market has increasingly
adapted to the needs of search engine marketing.
To get a search engine visitor, you don't need
a Pulitzer-prize winning essay or a killer salës
letter. You simply need highly focused, readable,
keyword-optimized, information-packed pages of
around 250 words each — and more and more copywriting
and SEO firms are delivering this service cost-effectively.
Blogs, meanwhile, let you and your employees add
content easily. Bulletin boards (modified to be
search-engine-friendly) let site visitors add
content, too. In fact, "natural content"
from blogs and bulletin boards is now much more
viable than natural link building.
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