For those of you that have still not heard about this idea from Google, I’ll catch you up to speed.

Google plans to create a user generated content site, similar to Wiki, where by information can be collected and distributed accordingly. An interesting section of the announcement was this paragraph:

“Knols will include strong community tools. People will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on. Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.”

It’s certainly a social approach to the Wiki and with revenue sharing available this will no doubt open up opportunities for people.

For more information on this visit the official Google Blog

Also check out the large screenshot of Google Knol

This time last year there was no doubt on every good seo work person that providing high quality content on a website would add great value to a website. Is this still true today?

I believe that providing good quality content on a website should be standard regardless of your seo strategy. A website should have information and content that people want to read and will enjoy reading, no question. Doing this 12 months ago would by all accounts have been a key component in any seo strategy, providing new content would keep the search engines hungry for more, open up new opportunities for long tailed keywords and generally help with your overall SERP positions.

It seems to me that the value of updated content has been reduced as of late. Maybe this has been introduced because of the sheer volume of bloggers out there that update their sites with very low quality updates in the hope to get on the good side of Google? Or perhaps bloggers are re-posting existing articles with very little changed from the original therefore reducing the importance of the content?

So if content is no longer key, what is its value?

As mentioned before you should have good quality content no matter what, this should be for the benefit of your readers or customers, not for Google or other search engines. You will still see an increase of traffic but not as high as once realised, plus your primary keywords will move very little (if any) up the SERPS.

What is key then?

Unfortunately in Google I believe that the websites visibility through backlinks still plays a big part of your overall positions for keywords. Even more so now the majority of people have been slapped on the wrist for “buying links” or paying for blog posts. Developing new and effective ways of generating natural links and maintaining and increase of these links should now be a major part of any seo strategy, this is unfortunately easier said than done.

I think it goes without saying that SERPS today move more regularly than ever at this point of time. If, like me you manage a large number of clients seo campaigns then you have to be on top of your keyword positions.

A recent blog post by Rand over at Seomoz has inspired me to share my metrics and layouts of performing such a task.

Identify your keywords

No doubt that if you have an original tender or you will involved with the initial seo start up of a new website that you will somewhere have a list of keywords. I identify the keywords and rank them based on priority. For example if I was to identify keywords for a “Classic Cars” website words such as “Classic Cars” would be a top priority, words such as “Car restoration” might be a third priority.

Now the keywords listed should be made up of targeted products or services so you attract the “paying” visitors. Of course if you are not out to make money you still want the most relevant traffic swinging in your direction. These keywords can either be identified through a company tender or information pack or using Overtures keyword search tool (based on search volumes).

Which search engines to look at?

With a list of keywords at the ready and implemented through the usual channels you should choose the correct search engines to keep an eye on. As we are based in the UK and primarily target UK based consumers we use: Google UK, Yahoo! Uk, Msn UK and sometimes Ask UK. Obviously if you service or product is available at a global level then a .COM route is more appropriate, although harder to rank.

Look closer than you originally think.

Don’t use automated tools, I find their results to be inaccurate at the best of times, do it all manually. This should involve typing in your keywords and searching through the pages looking for the specified domain. Please remember to look for pages other than your “homepage” sometimes these can rank higher for long tailed keywords. Personally I will look on the first 10-15 pages, anything after that is in my opinion “not ranked”.

Frequency

Obviously it depends on the amount you are getting paid as to your resource management. I check the majority of clients once a week for their primary keywords and every 2 weeks for the others. I did originally start at once a month but found there is a lot to be learned if you look at the SERPS more often.

What is the point?

Doing this will give you a better understanding as to what works on your seo campaigns, especially with link building. You will at times see great increases and reductions on your SERPS positions. Personally I learn a lot, plus can even work out at what time of the month a website will achieve its best SERP positions (there does seem to be an emerging pattern – more tba) which is important to use when developing an SEM campaign. Knowing your positions will keep you up-to-date with your industry competitors, their positions are just as important as you.