Live With Ani: SEO 101: Copywriting basics - Why content matters for good SEO

Rule number one, Content is "King". I know I have a comment from Neerav saying:

"Sorry Ani but I have to disagree with "Just build content .... and they will link to you magically!"

I used to write really long, well researched and helpful articles on the basis of "build it and they will come" ... but hardly anyone read them

Now I've learnt from people like Darren Rowse who say: "Build it and they will come doesn't apply to blogging - you need to think about where your potential readers are already gathering and go interact with them there"

Case in point: The only reason I got backlinks and lots of traffic from Dannys searchengineland site, Rands seomoz site and lots of other Aussie SEO sites was because I emailed them all and told them about by Day1 and Day2 SMX Sydney recap articles

If I'd just written them and told no one, then no one would have read the articles and no one would have linked to them"

I still think if the content is not good, no one will link to you, no matter who you know. So I do agree with Neerav and I think content is King.

To provide good SERP, the search engines' first tasks are to find pages to index for appropriate keywords and keyword phrases. One important way they do that is by following links. Content is important to the search engines so they know what web pages are all about and can make determinations on what pages to serve up to search queries. Links are important so they can find more content to index. So really, content truly is “king” on the Web when it comes to the search engines.

Since search engines cannot see images, the subject of a web page must be written in such a way that images are not needed. Of course, you might still want to use pictures since pictures are still “worth a thousand words” to someone who can see them, but to the search engines the pictures are just code they need to get through to get to the good stuff – the textual content.

Much discussion has ensued regarding how many words to write: should it be more or should it be less? Some say to try and write no less than 200 words and no more than 1000 words. Others say just write what you need to get your point across. In other words, write for the reader, and if you can do that in 400-600 words, great. If not, do what you can, and if it turns out not to be enough, revise it and write more. The search engines will only index a certain amount of text so it’s best not to get too carried away. A long page can always be split into multiple pages, if necessary, and the additional pages provide opportunities for more pages to be ranked for targeted keywords.