Google says so; many experts say so; in fact, many web publishers say so. Is that so? Is content really king?
No, I don’t think so. I used to think that content is king, but not anymore.
Who is the king in web publishing today? REPUTATION.
That’s right – in my opinion, your website’s reputation is more important than your content.
“But Google says so in their quality guidelines,” you argue.
Well, you are correct, but unfortunately, what Google displays in the search engine result pages somewhat tell a different story.
When you search for a particular term, what did you see on Google – and on other search engines’ result pages?
1. Pages from big sites with reputable brand
2. Pages shared many times on social media
What both have in common? More often than not, both mean that your company reputation is uber-important in the eyes of Search Engines.
Sure, you can get plenty of shares on social media to get you ranked high on SERPs (search engine result pages) – but we can’t deny the fact that your reputation influences whether people will share your content or not.
But why the injustice? Why big brands get all the perks?
Well, to set things straight, here’s what I see:
1. It’s not injustice – big brands are, well, big for a reason: They have built their reputation for years and have invested a lot in building their brand – online and offline. Getting privilege of rank higher on SERPs is just natural.
2. It’s Google’s interest to list big brands’ pages higher on SERPs – they are (potential) advertisers and they help keeping Google runs as a company. Injustice? No – nothing personal, it’s just business.
And Google is not alone; many have done similar things: Yelp, Etsy, etc. – when these brands are becoming big, they will focus on the big clients.
Let’s take Etsy for example. It was THE site for independent business owner to showcase and sell their products. They make money, Esty makes money. It was a win-win arrangement.
Then, Etsy grows bigger – instead of using resources to focus on the smaller businesses, they opt for big clients, displaying their products on top of the list.
I understand what Google and Etsy anger those who were benefited from the sites.
I am an online business owner, too, and I can’t understand why my websites ranking went down on Google SERPs almost every time Panda, Penguin and others in Google Zoo launch an update. I lose money in the process, simply because my sites’ traffic equals my income.
However, I can’t say that Google is being injustice. Google never begs me to index my sites, do they? It’s my decision to get my site listed on Google index. If I don’t like how things go, just go to other search engines and stop relying on Google.
If I were Google, I’d probably do the same. I want my product (in this case, search) to improve in quality so that I can also attract big clients at the same time.
Remember, companies like Google, Etsy, etc. are not non-profit organization – which means that what they do is geared toward revenue, and it’s only natural for them to wanting to make more money. That’s why it’s called a “business.”
Injustice? No – again, nothing personal, it’s just business.
Okay, let’s go back to the topic. With the above as an argument, it’s now easy to tell why – no matter how good your article or blog post is – you are having a hard time ranking on top of SERPs – naturally.
I’ve written long, authoritative posts published on my relatively new site – fail. I’ve hired a pro writer to write long posts for me, published on my new site – fail. I’ve written long posts for SEO – fail.
On the other hand, I’ve published decent posts on my highly reputable site – the posts ranked high on SERPs and get some nice amount of social traffic – success.
Yes, you can try blackhat methods, and to be honest with you, they still work. But unless you continuously spending money to boost your rank while making your site looking like a zombie (not much substance but alive because it’s supported by ‘dark force’, in this case, blackhat methods) you won’t survive in the long term.
So, based on the above ‘experiments’ I do on my sites – to conclude, I don’t think content is king. Not anymore. Your reputation is king. And although you are not potentially a Google AdWords client, your reputation AND nice posts will help this particular Google’s product – the search – to be more appealing to both Google users and advertisers.
To conclude: Content alone can’t get you far; you need to step up in your game, and in order to do so, you need to improve the quality of your content AND your website reputation.
Want to boost your reputation? Focus on content marketing.
Okay – so, do you want to get traffic and – hopefully – get ranked high on search engines? Here’s the key to your success (these are not optional – you must do all of these):
1. Create authoritative content – continuously.
2. Boost your website’s vital stats – raising your DA (Domain Authority), do proper on-site and off-site SEO, etc.
3. Boost your content marketing efforts – get active on social media promoting your content.
4. Join influencer’s network – i.e. Triberr – to get your content seen by your industry leaders and influencers.
…THEN you will start seeing results. Challenging, yes – but not impossible.
What do you think? Is your content more important than your site reputation – or vice versa? Please share your thoughts!
