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07.02.09 Developing Good Results For SEO And The End User 
By Scott BoydFor some people, SEO has always been about this - creating a killer page that deserves to be number 1. Perhaps it doesn't always shine through in the work you do - there are a variety of constraints that can hold you back - money, time, resources or corporate politics to name but a few. But in general, this is the approach that always serves you well. This article looks at some of the traits of a category killing page and how you moving away from the "keyword, keyword, keyword" mentality that SEO encourages can do wonders for your rankings. What we're not dealing with here is the technical side of SEO - the link juice, the internal link structures, the on page optimisation, the domain authority and so on - let's assume you're on the ball with these things already. Think of those factors as channels of promotion and packaging - what we're talking about here is the product itself - the content. It's the content that tends to so undervalued in the SEO world, despite the fact that every SEO pretty much has "content is king" engraved on their eyeballs from the early days in their career. This is largely down to SEO deriving from a very technical group of people; at a time where simply listing more keywords on the page was the key to success. Fortunately the market has matured since then and we're slowly edging out the keyword filled sites in lieu of better content, but bland, average sites are still rampant and no doubt the owners wonder why their rankings aren't as strong as they could be. The answer is simple - both people and search engines want good results, yet a large part of SEO is about essentially ranking *any* page for relevant terms, rather than creating a page that *deserves* to rank for that term. Don't get me wrong here - I'm not suggesting that SEO is getting it wrong - quite the opposite in fact, many SEOs get it right with style! More than that though, the SEO industry has encouraged a level of competition amongst websites that drives innovation and development - I think we would have a very different web today if it wasn't for the SEO industry.
The point is that in many cases, SEO is kinda just tagged on the end of a project, almost as an afterthought - almost a case of "we want to rank for x, y or z - go and do it". The effectiveness of the work tends to boil down to the skills and experience of the SEO behind it, and I while I do think that's always and should be important, the main deciding factor should be down to the quality of the page. The two aren't mutually exclusive - let's look at the points to building a category killing page; Define your objectives What is your page all about? By defining the purpose of your page from the outset, you can not only easily accommodate any SEO details, but also ensure the page design includes everything you need it to in order to maximise the benefit you get from your traffic. Some questions to ask yourself: •
What do competing pages offer in terms of content? • What am I trying to achieve with this page? • What content do I need on this page? • What content *don't* I need on this page? • What can I offer that no one else is? • What makes this page better than other similar pages? • What will users searching for my targeted search term expect to find on this page? • How important is this page to my business strategy? Continue reading this article. About the author: Scott Boyd (aka Marketing Guy) is an Edinburgh based online marketing consultant with over 6 years experience in the industry. He is the founder of SEO agency eFlaunt, where he mixes a blend of traditional marketing and SEO. Scott's musings relating to the marketing and SEO industries can be found on his blog - Fused Nation. |
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