May 5th, 2010 by Susie

In the plentiful articles written on the topic of search engine optimization, there is sometimes the expression of the idea that content is king in a continuous campaign. Certainly the regular and frequent contribution of high grade content to a site is potentially a great boost to its ranking in the search engine results pages, but it is a necessary rather than a sufficient condition of sustained success. Given that there are several other elements in SEO campaigns, why is content sometimes accorded the status of king?

One reason why the potential of content is stressed is that it can please users and web crawlers alike. This means that relevant and informative content is always ticking two boxes simultaneously. The extent to which high quality content can transform the user experience is widely appreciated, although it is in part dependent on the sector in which the site operates. As with all SEO, each site should be treated according to its own specific needs.

A further explanation for giving precedence to content is that the addition of the right type of content should not incur penalties from the major search engines. Duplicate content may immediately appear to be an important exception to this, but it should generally be easy to avoid this potential hazard. If the content is being produced by other writers, the use of a tool such as Copyscape can prevent plagiarism from becoming an issue.

A third reason why the importance of content is often rated so highly in articles on SEO is that content producers are writing about their own area of expertise. This has at least three influential effects. Firstly, content writers are normally enthusiastic about what they do. After all, motivation would be problematic if this was not the case. Secondly, content writers are generally knowledgeable about their work. Thus writing illuminatingly about it is less of a chore than debating other less familiar subjects. Thirdly, content writers are alive to how difficult their efforts can prove. Hence some of them are understandably keen for it to be properly appreciated.

Therefore it can be seen that there are very powerful reasons why content is sometimes judged to be king in blogs and articles about search engine optimisation. Of course, content does typically play a pivotal role in the context of a successful campaign, but to give it royal status can seem to some to be a step too far. The modern ongoing campaign aims to achieve sustained success in the search engine results pages and for most sites this goal necessitates the adoption of a multi-faceted approach.

Although this argument does stray here on to somewhat controversial territory, it might be the case that the increasingly complex and technical SEO services being implemented in more recent times are putting content in to proper perspective. The shifting but converging galaxies of search and social media marketing are challenging the old order, and change sometimes appears to be revolutionary not evolutionary. If this view is correct, it is only fitting that the king of content is usually being replaced by a more balanced relationship between the diverse elements of specific campaigns.

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