Quality and Original Content, not Stuffing and Stealing
Does packing your merchandising copy with relevant keywords necessarily lead to high search-engine ranking? As Andrew Redfern of Hit Search humorously puts it: “Search engines are dumb, but they’re not that dumb.” The fact is, engines like Google and Bing are now sophisticated enough to distinguish high-quality, grammatically correct content from keyword-rich drivel. Another big no-no favored by Johnny Cut-Corners is pilfering phrases and content from competitors or other sources—search engines are about as impressed with duplicate content as the Duchess of Windsor would be with a carton of Chicken McNuggets. I’m afraid there’s no way around it; by far the best way to get in good with search engines is to have well-written content produced by trained writers. By the way, it’s not such a bad thing to have quality content for its own sake.
Read Redfern’s story at hitsearchlimited.com.
Nordstrom Planning Long-Term for E-Commerce
Mark Brohan of Internet Retailer has a comprehensive story on retail giant Nordstrom‘s e-commerce vision of the future. Displaying considerable foresight and dedication—as well as perhaps serving as a bellwether for e-commerce on the whole—the department store de luxe has announced it will spend 15 percent (a cool $375 million) of their total expenditure budget over the next five years on enhancing their online and mobile storefront. With online shopping growing much faster than any other retail avenue, and with one third of all new Nordstrom customers coming from their website, the Nordstrom honchos seem to have a very realistic grasp of just how important it is to stay at the head of the class when it comes to the quality and breadth of their online presence. “Direct is our fastest-growing part of the business, which is reflective of how customers increasingly want to shop,” said CEO Blake Nordstrom.
Read the full story at internetretailer.com.
…And More Advice for SEOing your Online Content
Speaking of SEO tactics that don’t work, Rob Young of Search Engine Journal today offers a list of them. Young affirms that keyword stuffing and content duplication have gone from effective to detrimental as search engines have improved. He also touches on a notion we like to put out there as much as we can: when it comes to content, you’ll most definitely want quality over quantity. While some companies choose to pay for rubbish “penny-per-word” content, Young claims that paper-thin copy “decimates site reputation” and will “substantially hurt your ranking.” This is even truer after Google’s recent Panda update.
Read Young’s list of outdated SEO tactics at searchenginejournal.com.
