Content is King on the Internet

There is little else to say - on the web, content is king. In the interests of not leaving you with a blog entry of 10 words, let’s look at why.

Before we begin, for the purposes of this article, content means well researched, well-written and identifiable web copy and images.

Web content is a commodity. It is the main ingredient of the product offered by a growing number of companies. Search engines, social media sites and web directories that is, all of which need content to survive.

Pretend you started a search engine. As with any other business, the first task is to determine your product. That’s easy: search results. Step one done. Your products are the search results that your engine produces when a surfer enters a keyword.

Step two is to identify your market, or potential customers. Easy again: web surfers. Step two done. (This is so easy. I wonder why everyone doesn’t start a search engine or social media site – or did I speak too soon?) Your customers are internet searchers and you want as many of them as possible to use your search engine.

If your engine produces pertinent, high quality results for your customers, they will be happy and more likely to use your engine again; and maybe they will tweet about it.

If your engine produces poor search results, your customers may be confused or frustrated. When that happens, not only will they tweet about it, they will devote entire entries about it in their blogs and start a “Hate Your Search Engine” community on Facebook. The bad vibe will go viral and you will be out of business by teatime.

That’s why content is king on the web.

(Well, it's one reason anyway.)

By Stephen Da Cambra