My Perspective on the "Google Farmer" Update, and How It Can Help You Market...

[Ouroboros]

We've always heard the mantra (or cliche), that "Content is King".

With the ever present tendency for marketers to want to do something faster and cheaper, and game the system whenever possible, this evolved into "If content is King, then a crap-load of it is the Sorcerer".

It became a mad dash to flood the internet with "quantity" of content, rather than quality. So-called "Content Farms" were spawned by people that should have known better , and no-doubt certain economies in non-english speaking nations got a shot in the arm from all the contract writing that was flooding the www.

Google finally decided that LSI, or some variation thereof, was more important than tons and tons of "words" about a topic. Let's face it, one single article that answers the question that a searcher has, is much more valuable than 1500 articles that are just vague filler.

So how does this help you to market?

Stop paying pennies/word for drivel that's just words... and either write your own content or find someone that can write intelligently about it.

Writing about a topic is not just for backlinks, and that should never be the primary intention of it. You're writing for human beings, "people" that have a problem or a desire that they want more information about.

They're going to ignore the crap articles, and the salesy ones are the last stage in the research process. They want information that either gives them a better understanding of the question they had, or gets them closer to solving a problem.

I think you'll find that "quality" articles at any directory. content farm, answers site, or anywhere you've been relying on...are still rating just as high in google as they ever did.

Perhaps a very good time to make sure you post your "quality" content on your own property first.

Steve

[AdZaz]

Amen Steve,

I'm sure we've all been searching for something and had to forage through loads of garbage content before finding what we were looking for.

Putting out a load of trash content will bring you the same in return...

Put some thought into your content, and provide people what they are looking for, then you have some valuable traffic!

[Uncleflag]

Here here Stephen!! Nothing you said is prophetic... it has actually been the mantra the last couple of years... but not very many was heeding the call. If you want results... Google is more then ever making you conform to quality standards.

[Ouroboros]

I tried being a dollar-a-hundred-word writer just to jump start my efforts, but I also know what I got when I outsourced...

If someone has a true need for a solution, they don't want "words", they want a solution.

[JSProjects]

Good post. I've rarely been able to hire someone to write content for me. I usually end up making changes anyway. Id rather write it myself and ensure that it's a quality article and not just something that's spammed with keywords.

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by Uncleflag

Here here Stephen!! Nothing you said is prophetic... it has actually been the mantra the last couple of years... but not very many was heeding the call. If you want results... Google is more then ever making you conform to quality standards.

It has been the mantra for years, and yes, from a certain point of view nothing has changed. But i still see staggering numbers of sites who use garbage content or who simply copy articles from ezine.

And then they wonder why they dont rank well in Google....

[brianboyer]

I definitely agree with everything you said and I think that these new rules to Google's search engine are not bad at all. They may be bad for autobloggers who generate content that has already been made, or people who rely on using others' content. But for those who write high quality articles and put some work into their thoughts and words, this new change can create a much more positive outcome.