new media

Content is King

How to make fresh web content a traffic-driving vehicle to your site

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Content is king.”  Whoever said this wasn’t lying.

When speaking in terms of search engine optimization (SEO), fresh content carries a lot of weight because users surfing the net are always on a quest for the most-up-to-date information.
Additionally, regularly updated web sites encourage frequent spider visits.  A good example to illustrate this is the case of a page that is updated daily versus one that is updated much less frequently.  You would find that a search engine crawls the active page more frequently than the less active page.  This same concept can be used to explain why blogs have very frequent bot visits.

The most simple way to have fresh content appear on your site daily is through RSS feeds.  Simply search RSS feeds in a search engine; all you need from there is an RSS parser that can convert the feeds to real time content.  Syndic8 and Feedster are the two most popular RSS feeds currently.

Magpie Parser is commonly used by webmasters.  It’s a strong open source PHP parser that allows the coder to transform any feeds to relevant content pages. The best thing about RSS feeds?  It cuts down on the time it takes to create and post new content while still giving you all the benefits of doing it.

Another great and easy tip for fresh content is to reprint articles on your site. A number of directories exist that allow webmasters to do just this. Reprinting articles takes very little effort and allows search engines to have new content to index for your site. Beware: A lot of directories put a limit on how many times their articles can be reprinted on an outside site.  But again, it’s another great way to post fresh content fast and without the effort of writing it yourself.

And of course, there is nothing like the good ol’ fashioned way of creating fresh content – write it yourself (or get someone else to do it for you)!  A great tool for content management is WordPress because it let’s the administrator grant access to many people in a company to post new content.  This often means more fresh content with more frequency and efficiency.

Remember, when talking about SEO, updated and unique content is king.  So update, update, update! 

Questions? Need more info? Send Scott K an email.