Think about it. How many people can answer that question with certainty? I look at the Google logo hundreds of times a day and yet I couldn’t answer that question with 100% confidence. I thought the answer was red…it’s green. The thing that struck me the most about this question is how little attention is paid to the content of a website – even a website you see everyday.
A little known SEO fact: Many search engine optimizers operate under the idea that no one is ever going to read website content. Quite a shocking revelation considering how often we stress the importance of quality content. It might seem like we are battling windmills we believe to be giants by working so arduously to create meaningful, keyword-focused, valuable content that we don’t believe anyone will read, yet, there is a certain genius to it. Let me explain. Yes, content is extremely important- excellent content is vital because search engines read it and it is a significant aspect of ranking. When bots crawl your site they are looking for keywords and content- and you will be ranked accordingly. If you have no content on your site, you don’t have a hope of generating traffic. If anything, search engine optimizers aren’t being foolish, we are being realistic. We know that content is non-negotiable for search engines and even though we don’t always think people are reading it, quality content is vital for people as well. Even though most people rush through a wesbite, find what they need and rush out, it is still important to have plenty of valuable and informative content for those users who actually want to read it. It can be so easy for an SEO copywriter to write only for search engines- it is a habit we all fall into time and again, but we can’t forget that the Internet is for people, not search engines. This is why your page structure is important, you need to balance the need for quality content that some visitors want with other visitors need for fast navigation. Hence the use of bold type and large buttons amongst text. You can direct hurried visitors attention towards what it is they are most likely looking for without sacrificing what search engines (and some people) like- which is content.
These are just the realities of SEO, you need solid content but you can’t expect every bit of it to be read by anything other than a bot. Even with that reality to consider you also have to be mindful of who the Internet was created for- man not machine. Bascially what I’m trying to get across is that even though you might not expect anyone to read your content other than a search engine you should still be writing for people- because at the end of the day people are what drive the Internet, not search engines. Does it matter what color the L is in the Google logo? No, what matters is that Google provides valuable content that people find helpful and informative- don’t forget this (even if you forget their color scheme.)
