Search Engine Optimization: For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 9. Bulking Up Your Site — Competing with Content

In This Chapter

• Creating content yourself

• Understanding copyright

• Finding free material

• Paying for content

Content is often an extremely important factor in getting a high ranking in the search engines. Content is a geeky Web term that means, in the broadest sense, "stuff on your Web site." A content-rich Web site is one that contains lots and lots of information for people to see, read, and use.

For search engines, content has a more narrow definition: words, and lots of 'em. So if you're interested in search engine optimization, you should concentrate on the text part of your Web site's content (the right text, of course, using the keywords you find out about in Chapter 5). You don't need to worry about pictures, video, or sound — at least as far as the search engines are concerned — because those forms of content don't help you get higher rankings. You don't need Flash animations, either, because although some search engines index them, they don't index well; how often do you find a Flash page ranking highly in the search results?

What you should be concerned about is text — words that the search engines can read. Now, it's not always necessary to bulk up your site by adding textual content — in some cases, it's possible to get high search engine rankings with a small number of keyword-laden pages. If that's your situation, congratulations. Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your rather minimal labors, and skip this chapter. But ...