Text and links are what the web is based on. So every time you find a new content, it may include either text or links. And when this content do exist, you’ll find it iterated into different ways of faked, duplicated and abused versions of it.
What SEO used to be in the past?
We can all still remember black hat SEO techniques such as coloring the font just like the background, hidden keywords and Keywords pages. This was before Google’s update (Florida) occurred that forced webmasters to create true content instead of spammed text.
Links were still easy to add but it needed the right place to be added to. Content writing websites did that by making webmasters add content and links for SEO. This was the era of link building for SEO and it was seeking cost and quality ever since.
In February 2011, Google updated its algorithm (Panda update) which changed the concept of website creation totally. This update targeted the quality and depth of a website’s content. This update forced webmasters and SEO to add more content to the existing one because it was not providing the full information – just not the right quality.
Web developers who were producing low quality content found that it’s more important to work on developing readable content. At this time, there were many types of SEO strategies and link building tactics so SEOs focused more on content and network websites while they could. Content creation companies at this time were doubled in a small period of time.
This was going great for lots of SEO companies until last April 2012 when Google put this link farming websites and blog networks under fire, spreading content techniques are no longer available and everyone who’s using such methods to increase their rankings were penalized.
SEO professionals learned the hard way that website content must be Good. The only remaining question is, “Where will this content be submitted?”. Content creation requests dropped dramatically so SEOs reconsidered their marketing strategies to be able to promote websites content and get links.
How SEO will be in the Future?
SEOs know that low quality content is useless and won’t help them at all, especially with the current link building techniques; although high quality content can still drive some backlinks with some hard work.
There are some easier strategies that could be applied to SEO but they are more risky to get penalized. On the other hand, harder strategies are not that profitable nor scalable and are not worth it. That’s why SEOs should come up with new strategies that will fit both scenarios and will not work only now and for long-term as well.
Future content could be written in five points based on the history of SEO:
1- Rules of Quality content
Clients are now choosing professional writers to create content for them. In 2013, the demand on writers will increase. Not just any writers but writers who know exactly what they’re writing about – it’s more about choosing a professional in a specific field.
2- Content needs a push
The Panda update wanted webmasters to increase or enhance low quality content on their websites. Big brands and companies will now have to work harder to separate themselves from other vendors and competitors.
3- Longer articles are better
Writing new versions of articles that have already been written is the easy stuff to do. Longer articles are the next big thing and is expected to increase by 2013 which helps link building strategies.
Long articles are better not because of the word count but rather because of the ideas and concept in the article itself. A new piece of information, when it’s added to a previous collection of information such as an article, will result the article to increase naturally.
4- Use social media to grow
Joining many different social media platforms these days means adapting content to work best for each platform. Although this doesn’t fall in the SEO activities, there are some companies that can provide content which is ready to be published on different social media channels.
5- Images and videos
Recent studies show that using images is much better for engaging users – video has the same impact but with less effect. Make sure that visual content is found in your post or article. Alt tags and captions are important to improve the descriptions of your content. Another form of content is the Infographic which will increase in popularity in 2013 also.
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