Adding Value
As discussed earlier, in order for websites to get a good rank on search engine results, such as the first ten positions, the first thing to do is to take care of website optimization that is an important requirement. The problem is the big majority of websites can meet that requirement because it is clearly outlined and could be easy to implement. However, how are the search engines going to give rank for these huge number of websites that meet their optimization requirement?
That is when they came up with another requirement, which is websites, despite what they are doing online, they have to create some value in order to get a good position on search results using organic search. That actually changed the game.
The way to go about creating value had been using the various forms of content marketing where formats such as article writing, video presentation, starting a blog, podcasting, infographics, ebooks, whitepapers, slidshare presentations, tutorials, quizzes, webinars etc., could all be considered content through which webmasters can create value for their visitors. The idea behind creating value is to inform and educate visitors so that their visiting will be their worthwhile in addition to the reason why they are visiting a given website such as to buy a product or a service.
Consequently, those who can exploit this particular requirement effectively would get higher rank that makes sense because everyone cannot do it at the same level. The outcome had been everyone whether they are big businesses or small ones, or individual sellers had been putting valuable content on their websites to be found on good position on search results. The assumption is the robots that the search engines send out know how to evaluate good content.
In addition, the content has to be recent, which means uploading new content at least once a month, since that is the regular visit the robots make to every website out there with the exception of those websites that had become inactive because they are not submitting their website to the search engines regularly or they are not putting the required content on their websites. If there is a catch, unless there is a recent material the robots might not visit unless the webmasters submit their websites manually by going to the particular search engines website or there are websites and tools that can submit a website’s URL to all available search engines or lists in a bulk.
The advantage of content is whenever there is a new content the robots know about it and they will come out to visit. The outcome will be they will add the website into their active list, which is very important to get a good position on search results. That is why, for example, having an active blog will bring the robots daily making the website always active on their list and such websites can end up on top. Otherwise, a given website could become inactive and will not show in search results affecting the usefulness of the website.
Written material such as articles, blogs, and whitepapers used to be very important and dominant, but recently video has become the leading preferred content format passing the 80% mark outdoing the other content formats because visitors had stated that they prefer short videos that could be explicit and concise because of the time constraints they have showing that today’s attention span is around eight seconds. But it seems that for the search engines, as long as they find what they call “value” for visitors, they do not give preferential treatment to video, or any other format.
The most important aspect for the visiting robots is recent content that will make them come out frequently and visit that will result in adding the website into their active list. Therefore, the best way to go might be to put the various content formats side by side with videos the most preferred format where articles, whitepapers, blogs, podcasts, inforgraphics, etc., that are easier to keep recent that will help with the ranking showing that the complication of getting one’s website at a good position on search results is continuously evolving becoming more sophisticated.