Content Is King, Traffic Is Supreme

By Author: Larry Tang
Total Articles: 512
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"What should I put on my website?" That is the question I receive mostly from newcomers. The answer is very simple, content. You have to give your visitors and prospects a reason to go to your website, and keep going to your website.

The Content Thou Art King

The website's information; text, images, videos, audio, and other data are the content elements you provide. The flavor of the content should be unique, and entice the visitors to get involved in your website. The style of your writing, content will portray a personality in itself and provide flavor to your website.

For me, I personally write to people the way I talk, simple. I try to use visual references when possible to convey the complex message I want the reader to understand. I can take it up a notch and write in perfect English, and use big words that will bore or even scare my reader/visitor, but that would not be good for business/traffic.

When creating the content, you have to keep in mind the education of your target audience, what their likes and dislikes are AND what would they like to see on your website.

For example, when ...
... I look up a word, I use Google to search for the word and then got to a dictionary website to understand the meaning. Now most likely that dictionary website will not have video streaming on using the word, but will have simply what I am looking for, the definition and an example of usage.

That's what I expect, and that's why I usually return to that particular site so I no longer have to use Google because I have found what I am looking for when I need word help. I simply bookmark it. The Webmaster of that dictionary site understands what I need, and is able to deliver it. Before you even begin to write content you have to get into the mindset of the targeted user of your site. You have to think like they think; what do they expect, and what can you deliver.

Then create content around that targeted visitor. Create videos, images, audio, text information, news archives, and press release with that perfect visitor in mind.

Caution: a lot of people go off on a tangent since they hear things like "Google sends the most traffic, so I have to create a site Google Likes."

However, the #1 guideline Google gives is:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.

Link: http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/tenthings.html

Google focuses on the user rather more than any other variable to guide them when creating great products and/or services. That's exactly what you need for your website. Concentrate on the user's experience. Giving a user great experience relies on one thing CONTENT.

If you have unique, and INTERESTING content on your website, that cannot be found elsewhere (unique content) on the Internet, you are winning the competitive battle. Others will attempt to copy you, but as long as you keep innovating, and taking the "Unique-ness", and "Interest-ness" to the next level, the competition will always fall short.

The Traffic Thou Rains Supreme

Traffic is the lifeblood of any site. The easiest way to get traffic is having great content!

Having the #1 spot on Google doesn't do you any good if your website is lacking in interest, and flavor. In fact if you attain a #1 top spot for a high-ranking keyword, it can only be through having great content and valuable information on your site. So great content, the greatest content and the #1 ranking is kind of a self-fulfilling philosophy.

Most traditional traffic comes from Search Engines, and unfortunately a lot of well-meaning gurus tell people to increase their traffic on search engines as if it is the be all and end all of traffic online. It's not.

Traffic can come from anywhere and everywhere. Traffic can come from web 2.0 sites like Digg.com, Del.icio.us, or StumbleUpon.com. These sources can be intense on some days and mediocre on others. But when it hits, it hits hard. Despite the daily gyrations, generally you will usually see a steady stream of traffic monthly from this type of traffic.

Traffic can comes from Blog comments that you posted on other people's blogs. Backlinks, or even the nofollow links, still allow people that read the comment the opportunity to go to your site. They are more likely to follow your link if you say something interesting.

Traffic can come from participating in forums, or online chats that allow you to put your website as a link in your signature and/or profile.

Traffic can come from Yahoo Answers, a place where people can go to ask questions of experts in the industry. Register as an expert and give your 2 cents. I believe Google has Answers too.

Traffic can come from YouTube (tons of it), Metacafe, and other online video sites. If you have a tutorial video for example of your services, post it up on the video site, and put a link in the description of it to attract more visitors. Also add a watermark and place the URL in the beginning and ending of your video. The amount of traffic you see will vary but if your subject is viral, you can see visitors topping 100,000 a day, if DONE RIGHT.

Traffic can come from RSS feeds of your content to RSS aggregators, like Google's BlogSearch. RSS feeds are another great subject that can be like steroids to a website's traffic.

Traffic is endless and it is infinite. In my opinion, it is a good strategy to keep your traffic from one source always under 40%. For example Google, the Big G, is sending you more than 40% of your traffic; you have to decrease it by increasing the other sources of traffic you get. Now I don't mean reject Google traffic, but always trying to supplement it. But if you know you know how all of this works together, you will say, wait, if I increase my backlinks, YouTube videos, etc, that will give me a higher PageRank and increase the Google traffic even more. Yep, it's a hell of a snowball affect; just make sure you continue increasing other sources of links, and you will not be at the mercy of 1 source of traffic.

Ying Yang

Content and Traffic are like Ying and Yang; one cannot exist without the other. If you solely concentrate on traffic, you will find out that you can gain 1,000 visitors an hour, but most will leave within 1 minute, since your content is lackluster. But on the other hand, if you have great content, traffic will flow like a river.

My suggestion is to use 80% of your energy on creating great content and 20% on driving traffic. The reason; traffic is the easiest thing in the world to get a couple thousand directories links, article submissions, video submissions, web 2.0 bookmarks, and bam easy 2,000 visitors a day. But without the great content, you will be wasting your time as visitors leave in droves. Obviously this depends on your industry as a whole, and the length of time it takes for you to generate all the great content you have.

So, Content is King, Traffic is Supreme! Creating unique content and expand your exposure on the Internet, and you will do great!