Content is not King! It's the wrong analogy! The Monarch as Head Of State is merely a figurehead without real power! In the multichannel age of search and social, smartphone and tablet, it is content itself, which is the universal life-force driving human engagement. Content is today's supreme ruler over search engine, social networking, user eyeballs and consumer fingertips. Optimisation means more than driving traffic, it must deliver 'customer experience'.
Why should anyone click on a link unless they're sure they will get to see valuable content? Too often the reverse has been true.Many users now simply won't bother unless they know the site will supply their search needs. While the original principle of organic link building was being undermined by link farms and fake sites, the emergence of social networking and social media content creation / sharing began changing the rules of the web.
Multichannel and platform means even greater competition to be visible and credible to gain the attention of consumer trust and ranking on Google, alike. As Google has stated, " Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find 'high-quality' sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content".
In other words, the focus is on creating the best possible user experience. Websites offering original relevant content will gain the most visibility. Ecommerce now needs to invest in reinforcing site page optimisation with a content rich, user-friendly and interactive customer experience linked to social engagement. One in five social media messages now include links to content, and over 40 per cent of consumers look to articles and blogs for key info on their potential purchases.
One-way online marketing is changing to a multidisciplinary approach, which integrates traditional paid search PPC ads and SEO keyword optimisation with social interaction via key content. Social is optimising and content is social! Google reports that the 'social signals' of frequently updated blog posts and Tweets steadily increase organic search traffic and will use +1 as a ranking signal. Bing already uses Facebook Likes as a ranking signal for logging in users.
Today's web is customer-centric. As smartphone and tablet technology evolve, changing user behaviour demands content to adapt and provide for the age of on-demand access and augmented reality, ie.QR codes, Blippar. Optimising marketing strategies for key niche customer online /offline touchpoints on the multichannel is a priority.
With the focus now on replacing 'intrusive' marketing messages with useful content - to 'pull' rather than 'push' - and Google algorithm antennae keenly tuned to quality content indexing - the competition to win hearts and minds of users will only heat up.