Commentary

Mourning The State Of Content

by Derek Gordon , September 8, 2009

In my work, I engage with a lot of small and medium-sized businesses. And the vast majority come to us looking for ways to start or improve upon their PPC and SEO efforts, with a preference for first and foremost improving their natural search rank.

This makes sense: clicks from natural search results are free.

But as everyone who does some form of what we do knows, the degree to which SEO efforts can succeed directly correlates to the quality, power and impact of any given Web site. Now, I love our small and growing business clients -- love them. But I must confess to one overriding concern that grows with each new Web site I encounter: Too many business owners have built sites that are to some degree unprepared to conduct business on the Web.

Whether this is a commentary on our fast-changing times or the failure of our education system to adequately prepare our citizens for work in the 21st century, one thing is clear: There is a widespread lack of basic writing abilities and an equal lack of even the most basic technical skill.

There's a lot an algorithm can do for a business. It can help set and optimize bids for any given set of keywords in a PPC campaign, for instance, or evaluate the ways in which your site fails to conform to SEO best practices, including steps to take to address such issues.

But as far as I'm aware, an algorithm has not yet been written that will produce the basic content, organizational structure or navigation for a Web site (much less clever PPC copy.) While there are great templates and content management systems out there, if, as the saying goes, crap goes in, you know what you'll get out.

If I thought this was a localized or limited problem, I might not have taken the trouble to write about it. But the thing is, from my experience, the problem seems to be widespread. Folks from many socioeconomic backgrounds and from every corner of our country seem to suffer from the same limitations.

Web sites are undermined by basic composition problems. Where there is copy, it's often unfocused, with grammatical problems and, often, misspelled words. Even when it's well-written, it's left to grow stale or fails to be interesting enough to be link-worthy. In terms of technical ability, too many Web site owners are unable to install the Google Analytics tracking code in their site's footer on their own. Even those who use a good content management system such as WordPress will have very often failed to employ the standard SEO pack. Mention HTML, and they break into a cold sweat.

There is opportunity in this widespread lack of basic knowledge: specialist individual consultants and agencies are now widely available to address these issues. They do a wonderful job in most instances and provide a valued service.

But still, the basic concern remains. A cornerstone of both the U.S. and the world's economy is small and medium-sized businesses. They will be the economic and job-creation engines that not only carry us out of the great recession but to a more prosperous future.

If the small-business owners of the future -- most of whom will be undercapitalized to start and will have a limited ability initially to invest in third-party consultants -- are unable to conceive of and write a basic Web site, in full possession of just a few basic technical skills, what does that say about the future?

Schools sensibly focus on reading, writing and arithmetic. But are those most basic skills being taught to an adequate standard? Even folks receiving a college education seem to enter the workforce without basic business-writing skills. If these aren't being instilled to a degree required in a 21st-century content-is-king society, what chance is there that we'll be able to add basic technical education to the standard three "Rs"?

As professional journalism increasingly gives way to citizen journalism, and as more and more small businesses increasingly pick up the slack in our global economy, a growing number of average people will be required to produce content -- lots of it, regularly -- that is of a quality that far exceeds what's being produced today.

Until we as a society up the game on average, content will remain in a shameful state.

8 comments about "Mourning The State Of Content ".

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Gerard Mclean from Rivershark, Inc., September 8, 2009 at 10:45 a.m.
The greatest point of differentiation and the most durable competitive advantage any business will have in the next 3-5 years is the ability to WRITE WELL.
Currently, there is a culture in the social media space that argues writing well is not the important thing. Content, connecting and communicating are the important things. But that is just a rationalization and a cover for a lack of skill that will fall away in time. Very soon.
Reply

C.t. Trivella from NAS Recruitment Communications, September 8, 2009 at 11:12 a.m.

To Gerard's point, content is king. Any organization that believes that old, dried out information can remain a stalwart of the value proposition needs to investigate what the competition is doing and learn. There is no shame in not knowing everything there is to know about website content or design if this is not your area of expertise. Smart companies surround themselves with experts, internally and externally.

Douglas Cleek from Magnitude 9.6, September 8, 2009 at 11:25 a.m.

Excellent article. You underscore the issue well.
Fact is a lot of development misses the point, and fails to implement a sound SEO strategy from the ground floor up.
The entire content strategy needs to account for every facet of search and social media as well. Integrating these all together does require expertise. Perhaps we're seeing the pendulum swinging back to those who know how to implement properly.
Merely creating a visually good looking site these days isn't enough to move the needle.

Lorna Lyle from TMC, September 8, 2009 at 11:27 a.m.

TMC is well aware of the connection between informative, fresh, QUALITY content and delivering top/high organic search results for SMBs. Rich Tehrani led a Webinar on "Hosted SEO: The Winning Formula," which is archived in TMCnet's Webinars.

Basically, when companies use the assets of a 3rd party media partner for content, it frees them from the burden of constantly updating their Web presence with articles and blog posts for which they may not have the training and resources to do competently.

Additionally, this partnership may help them clear internal red tape posed by their legal departments.

As a result, the Web portals TMC develops deliver the organic results on SERPs that may cost far less than paid search ads. You can seen these Global Online Communities and Channels on www.tmcnet.com.

Geri Wilson from The Jonathan Group, September 8, 2009 at 11:53 a.m.

Though I absolutely agree with you, my clients don't. I represent plaintiff attorneys who are constantly sucked in to various SEO firms' threats that if you are not on the first page no one will ever see you.

These SEO companies -- often huge firms that prey on these lawyers -- write the most god-awful copy in a navigation style that makes no sense but gets the lawyers' sites very high on Google.

Meanwhile, I tilt at windmills as I declare to the wind that usability is, at the very least, just as important as searchability. I fear I'm losing the fight.

John Rasco from RefreshWeb, September 8, 2009 at 12:02 p.m.

Thanks for taking time to compose this elegant and persuasive rant...as a former English major, tech marketing guy and now president of an SEO agency, I've enjoyed (and prospered from) the power that understanding language, linguistics and prospects conveys. It's amazing that so many smart people don't understand the common sense approach of learning what your best prospects are using as their search terms, and then providing the information they want as the core offering of the website.

David Camp from Camp Creative, September 8, 2009 at 6:39 p.m.

News flash: good copywriters don't work for free! In fact, most charge $100 an hour or so, and it takes a lot of hours to plan and write a good site.

But companies don't hire writers to create sites; they hire designers, who then subcontract writers on the cheap. And so here we are.

Ken Carson, September 9, 2009 at 6:18 a.m.

While everyone makes good points here regarding the fact that good writing takes skill and for many here that represents a business opportunity. My concern is with Derek’s larger point relative to the US educational system. We are producing an entire generation of young people who do not know even the basics of business writing. I read cover letters from recent college graduates who obviously do not know how to construct a grammatically correct sentence. That's a much bigger problem. Schools have NOT focused on the three R’s, instead they have maintained a focus on creating students with high “self esteem.” To put it bluntly, we have a generation of cocky idiots.