In the increasingly competitive arena of online marketing content is king.  OK I know that saying is quickly becoming a cliché, but think about it. People are becoming more and more savvy when it comes to the internet, they know how to search for what they want. People no longer want to waste time sorting through sites that are not related to what they are looking for and they have a low tolerance for sites that are related but do do a poor job of expressing it.

This is where your content comes in. the search engines are doing alot of work to refine the searches behind the scenes. It is their job to make sure that people don't get a bunch of worthless junk when they do their searches. Having content on your site that is actually related to what people are searching for becomes more important every day. Just as people are tiring of dirty politics, they are also becoming weary of cheap marketing gimmicks or tricks.

Face it, people want to know why you're the expert. they are not interested in hearing your opinion on why the other guy is bad and they certainly don't want you to say you're the best without any information to back it up. the content on your website must prove your expertise, it must be visually pleasing, easy to read and most importantly it must sell your product or service.

When writing the text for your website, you must consider what keywords people are searching for. You must also assume that the potential client is intelligent. Give them a reason to believe that you are the best at what you do, that means making it easy for them to navigate around your site and purchase your products or services.

If you are having trouble writing the content for your web page, do what you would for your offline marketing, hire a professional.

Over the holidays, I've been spending some time reviewing old articles about SEO and the factors that make a good website. While searching, I found this set of videos by Matt Cutts that dispell some SEO myths. I couldn't help noticing that while speaking in the different video segments, Matt kept returning to the same criteria over and over again.

Crawlability - The simple fact is, Google and the other search engines cannot see a site that has no text. Flash images just can't be crawled. Copy must be "readable " to the search engine spiders or it won't be found.

Content - I've said this hundreds of times, the content of a website must be related to the search terms. Relevance is key. Equally as important, the text must be able to convert your visitors into paying customers and return visitors. Having content on your site that is related to what people are looking for is sure to be helpful in improving rankings.

Sitemaps - Give the spiders, and your visitors an easy way to navigate around your site. It is more important that you allow your visitors to easily move from page to page and purchase your products or services, then it is to have a "flashy" or pretty page that cannot be indexed.

Blogs, Newsletter &Ttutorials- Provide interesting content, a reason for people to bookmark and visit your site often and a medium to inform your clients about the latest industry news, sales and special events. it's simple, give people a reason to bookmark you and return to your site, this is your "hook".

Social Networking - When people share interests, they find each other online. Participating in forums, blogs and submitting articles showing you to be an expert in your field, is an excellent way to build links and drive traffic to your site, providing that you not trying to blatantly promote yourself.

There are many factors that can help with rankings, but I remain partial to this philosophy: Give the people what they are looking for. Be the best at what you do and present yourself in that fashion. If you need help with copywriting, or designing your site to be user friendly, hire an expert but make sure to do your research.