Regular Updates
It is pretty much accepted as fact
that if you change the content of your site
regularly, it will get indexed more often by search
engines. You can pretty much watch this in your
stats if you know how to track it, and I have seen
it happen with both my sites, and with client sites.
This information applies to infosites and product
sites, but most of the focus of this and the next
chapter are on infosites because that is where most
of the problems are with people cutting corners.
This section mostly refers to
content as articles or written material, but product
listings, reviews, directories, and other types of
sites also have content, and any updates to listings
or pages counts as fresh content.
When I have rebuilt sites that
were unchanged for a long time, indexing increased
in frequency. Then it decreased again if more than a
month or two went by without additional changes. For
an infosite, this means adding a page now and again,
or adding content to a page. For a product site,
that means adding or deleting products, or expanding
product descriptions, adding an informational area
to your site, etc.
The reason for this is that search
engine companies DO want to keep the information in
their databases up to date. But they don't want to
waste their time. So if your site looks like it is
just sitting there waiting, YOU'LL be the one
waiting for them to come back to notice any changes
you have made.
The need for updated content has
given rise to the proliferation of all kinds of
“automatic updated” sites. There are four basic
variations on this, and some are better than others,
but all have issues, and two have fatal problems:
Sites that automatically gather
posts from blog sites to repost on your site. Since
the blog posts are not screened by you, and since
the software automatically posts things to your site
based on keywords, the topics of the posts may or
may not actually be relevant to your site content.
Keywords are not totally accurate, nor can the judge
the quality of the word usage. BIG gamble here,
because no matter how much a search engine likes
your site, if PEOPLE hate it, no one will be back,
and your site will bomb.
Sites that automatically search
article databases and update the content based on
articles with matching keywords. It will
automatically post the author credits also, so you
are legally in the clear using this strategy, but
you have the same problems as before. You are
trusting a computer to judge whether an article is
suitable for your site or not, and you will NOT end
up with a quality site this way. It is not a stable
framework around which to build a site.
Article Site Builders, which do
the same as #2 here, but they just do a one time
search and create a quickie site for you from that.
You can customize the template to the topic that you
are searching on. As advertised, these have the same
problems as the two options above, with one great
exception that can pull it from uselessness to
genuinely useful – you can take the resulting site
and remove the pages that do not have quality
articles on them. And this is key – review by a real
human being. Do that, and this can help you. Skip
it, and you might as well not bother even putting
the resulting site up.
Article Site Directory Software.
This is a full website script that you install on
your server, which allows visitors to login and
leave an article. You BECOME the article database
owner. This gives you a chance to get good quality
stuff without having to write it all yourself. There
are two drawbacks – people won't post unless you
have a lot on there first, so you will have to find
a way to gather some postable articles to begin
with. Second, you HAVE to screen each article
personally, and check the links the author puts into
the article. Skip that, and you are right back with
poor quality, spammy articles that nobody wants, and
which dry up your traffic.
There simply is no substitute for
putting personal work behind it. You can use
software or a system to make the process more
efficient, but if you try to remove all the work
from the process and let the site run on auto-pilot,
you'll soon learn there is a good reason why I am
telling you this is not a viable way to run a
website.
So, if you make your own changes,
how often is enough? Generally, significant changes
(addition of one or two pages) per month is a good
minimum goal for each site. This can be done even if
you have a large number of sites, without
overwhelming you.
Monthly changes are sufficient to
let the search engines know your site is fresh and
that the owner is involved in it. More frequent
changes WILL get you indexed faster, but getting
indexed faster does not necessarily translate to
more traffic unless the pages you have actually
contain information that people want. Frequent
indexing is only useful if there ARE regular
changes, and if those changes are good ones.
This means that overall, frequency
of indexing is not something you need to sit around
fussing about. There are ways you can tell Google to
index you on a schedule, using a sitemap, but that
is a topic for another day. Basically, I don't worry
too much about it, and my sites get indexed well
simply because I keep them updated, and I keep
adding things, just a little, once in a while.
Automatically generated website
content is just one of the solutions out there that
are being pushed as the easy way to keep a site up
to date and maintained. Just as those types of sites
are either an outright bad idea, or at best, just a
way to cut a little of the time required, the other
shortcuts all have a nasty “gotcha” if you don't use
them in the right way. Used in the right way though,
some of them can genuinely save you time.
We covered automatic site
generation a little, but it bears mentioning in this
context also, with the understanding that any site
generated in that way must then be customized by at
LEAST reviewing the articles for quality, and
checking the links. At best, you should also shorten
the filenames (they tend to generate impossibly long
ones), and add some commentary to each page to make
it more original.
Replicated sites. The problem with
replicated sites is that they are identical to other
ones. Not only that, the site design tends to be
rather mundane, and the quality of the articles
included in them is often highly suspect. I have
seen some that could not compete even with a site
built by an amateur with good intentions, because
sincere unique content will outdo bad content any
day. A replicated site must be subjected to a
systematic customization and cleanup process before
it is uploaded, or it will be a certain failure. The
good news is that if you DO that, it can still save
you time over building from scratch, especially if
you are a novice.
PLR content. If you get a site
with PLR content, you MUST personalize it HEAVILY.
That means, basically rewrite the articles from the
top to the bottom, changing the wording of every
sentence. If you fail to do this, your site won't
even get out of the gate.
Templates. What does a template
have to do with content? If you use a template,
either create one yourself, or customize a ready
made one, then you'll save time doing that, giving
you more time to gather or write content. A well
designed template which is created with your
specific site needs in mind, can make it easier to
expand the site, and simple to add regular content.
The absolute best way to create
content is to write it yourself if you can do so
competently. There simply is not any other way to
get it that is quite as powerful. Search engines DO
give higher marks for totally unique content in a
new site. Sure, some of the old established big
names share articles around, but they are
unimpeachable sources of information. You don't have
that status, so if you do things that look like you
might be cutting corners, it will take you longer to
get established traffic. 25 pages of solid,
completely new content on the web can get more
attention in less time than 200 new pages of
reprinted content.
If you are producing your own
content, there are still some time savers which can
help you. Write a good outline for the site, and
include articles you have written previously on the
topic if you have any. Otherwise, write a site
outline similarly to how you might write a book
outline, with the page links in place of chapter
headings. Divide the information into logical
topics. Then write them in one page at a time. When
you write, do not pay attention to length. Just make
sure there is enough on each page to justify
clicking on the link. If a page is extremely long,
you might divide it into two, but if some are longer
and some are shorter, that actually helps you,
because it looks absolutely natural.
20 -30 pages of content is enough
to build a solid site around. 50-100 pages is
probably more likely to benefit you long term, but
you can start small and build. You'd be amazed how
fast a site with 20 pages can be built, and then
more pages can be added later to keep the site
fresh.
If you use shortcuts, remember the
rules. If you do it the long way, then make sure you
can still produce a high quality and readable
informational resource, because even the “right” way
is wrong if it yields a poor quality site.
This section mostly refers to content as articles or written material, but product listings, reviews, directories, and other types of sites also have content, and any updates to listings or pages counts as fresh content.
When I have rebuilt sites that were unchanged for a long time, indexing increased in frequency. Then it decreased again if more than a month or two went by without additional changes. For an infosite, this means adding a page now and again, or adding content to a page. For a product site, that means adding or deleting products, or expanding product descriptions, adding an informational area to your site, etc.
The reason for this is that search engine companies DO want to keep the information in their databases up to date. But they don't want to waste their time. So if your site looks like it is just sitting there waiting, YOU'LL be the one waiting for them to come back to notice any changes you have made.
The need for updated content has given rise to the proliferation of all kinds of “automatic updated” sites. There are four basic variations on this, and some are better than others, but all have issues, and two have fatal problems:
Sites that automatically gather posts from blog sites to repost on your site. Since the blog posts are not screened by you, and since the software automatically posts things to your site based on keywords, the topics of the posts may or may not actually be relevant to your site content. Keywords are not totally accurate, nor can the judge the quality of the word usage. BIG gamble here, because no matter how much a search engine likes your site, if PEOPLE hate it, no one will be back, and your site will bomb.
Sites that automatically search article databases and update the content based on articles with matching keywords. It will automatically post the author credits also, so you are legally in the clear using this strategy, but you have the same problems as before. You are trusting a computer to judge whether an article is suitable for your site or not, and you will NOT end up with a quality site this way. It is not a stable framework around which to build a site.
Article Site Builders, which do the same as #2 here, but they just do a one time search and create a quickie site for you from that. You can customize the template to the topic that you are searching on. As advertised, these have the same problems as the two options above, with one great exception that can pull it from uselessness to genuinely useful – you can take the resulting site and remove the pages that do not have quality articles on them. And this is key – review by a real human being. Do that, and this can help you. Skip it, and you might as well not bother even putting the resulting site up.
Article Site Directory Software. This is a full website script that you install on your server, which allows visitors to login and leave an article. You BECOME the article database owner. This gives you a chance to get good quality stuff without having to write it all yourself. There are two drawbacks – people won't post unless you have a lot on there first, so you will have to find a way to gather some postable articles to begin with. Second, you HAVE to screen each article personally, and check the links the author puts into the article. Skip that, and you are right back with poor quality, spammy articles that nobody wants, and which dry up your traffic.
There simply is no substitute for putting personal work behind it. You can use software or a system to make the process more efficient, but if you try to remove all the work from the process and let the site run on auto-pilot, you'll soon learn there is a good reason why I am telling you this is not a viable way to run a website.
So, if you make your own changes, how often is enough? Generally, significant changes (addition of one or two pages) per month is a good minimum goal for each site. This can be done even if you have a large number of sites, without overwhelming you.
Monthly changes are sufficient to let the search engines know your site is fresh and that the owner is involved in it. More frequent changes WILL get you indexed faster, but getting indexed faster does not necessarily translate to more traffic unless the pages you have actually contain information that people want. Frequent indexing is only useful if there ARE regular changes, and if those changes are good ones.
This means that overall, frequency of indexing is not something you need to sit around fussing about. There are ways you can tell Google to index you on a schedule, using a sitemap, but that is a topic for another day. Basically, I don't worry too much about it, and my sites get indexed well simply because I keep them updated, and I keep adding things, just a little, once in a while.
Automatically generated website content is just one of the solutions out there that are being pushed as the easy way to keep a site up to date and maintained. Just as those types of sites are either an outright bad idea, or at best, just a way to cut a little of the time required, the other shortcuts all have a nasty “gotcha” if you don't use them in the right way. Used in the right way though, some of them can genuinely save you time.
We covered automatic site generation a little, but it bears mentioning in this context also, with the understanding that any site generated in that way must then be customized by at LEAST reviewing the articles for quality, and checking the links. At best, you should also shorten the filenames (they tend to generate impossibly long ones), and add some commentary to each page to make it more original.
Replicated sites. The problem with replicated sites is that they are identical to other ones. Not only that, the site design tends to be rather mundane, and the quality of the articles included in them is often highly suspect. I have seen some that could not compete even with a site built by an amateur with good intentions, because sincere unique content will outdo bad content any day. A replicated site must be subjected to a systematic customization and cleanup process before it is uploaded, or it will be a certain failure. The good news is that if you DO that, it can still save you time over building from scratch, especially if you are a novice.
PLR content. If you get a site with PLR content, you MUST personalize it HEAVILY. That means, basically rewrite the articles from the top to the bottom, changing the wording of every sentence. If you fail to do this, your site won't even get out of the gate.
Templates. What does a template have to do with content? If you use a template, either create one yourself, or customize a ready made one, then you'll save time doing that, giving you more time to gather or write content. A well designed template which is created with your specific site needs in mind, can make it easier to expand the site, and simple to add regular content.
The absolute best way to create content is to write it yourself if you can do so competently. There simply is not any other way to get it that is quite as powerful. Search engines DO give higher marks for totally unique content in a new site. Sure, some of the old established big names share articles around, but they are unimpeachable sources of information. You don't have that status, so if you do things that look like you might be cutting corners, it will take you longer to get established traffic. 25 pages of solid, completely new content on the web can get more attention in less time than 200 new pages of reprinted content.
If you are producing your own content, there are still some time savers which can help you. Write a good outline for the site, and include articles you have written previously on the topic if you have any. Otherwise, write a site outline similarly to how you might write a book outline, with the page links in place of chapter headings. Divide the information into logical topics. Then write them in one page at a time. When you write, do not pay attention to length. Just make sure there is enough on each page to justify clicking on the link. If a page is extremely long, you might divide it into two, but if some are longer and some are shorter, that actually helps you, because it looks absolutely natural.
20 -30 pages of content is enough to build a solid site around. 50-100 pages is probably more likely to benefit you long term, but you can start small and build. You'd be amazed how fast a site with 20 pages can be built, and then more pages can be added later to keep the site fresh.
If you use shortcuts, remember the rules. If you do it the long way, then make sure you can still produce a high quality and readable informational resource, because even the “right” way is wrong if it yields a poor quality site.
