PUBLISHED: APRIL 08, 2014 – VIDEO: IMPROVE YOUR THIN CONTENT AND RANK HIGHER IN GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS – MATT CUTTS

If you want to rank higher in Google you need to have good unique content and plenty of it. One of the main things to get your site on page one of Google search results is content, you will often see the term “content is king” on a lot of sites that talk about SEO and its true, the more quality unique well written valuable content your site has the higher it will rank in Google.

In the above video Matt Cutts tells us about thin content with little or no added value on your site. He explains what to do if you get a message in your Google webmaster tools about thin content.

Some examples of what Google would consider thin content would be:

A simple example would be doorways

If you are making a lot of different pages with a slight variation of keywords then have a big button on each of those pages that says click here to enter.

Or if you make pages that are all exactly the same and then only change the city on each page, hoping to rank in all the different cities. If you looked at that page it would seem fine, but looking at all the pages you would quickly see that the only text that changes is the city.

If you want your site to rank higher in Google make sure you do not have thin content, its not the number of pages a site has, but rather the quality.

Next Matt tells us about affiliates, he mentions thin affiliates. A affiliate program is a link or banner you have on your site that a visitor will click on to purchase a product and you get some sort of commission when that visitors makes a payment.

Affiliates are a great way to increase revenue on your site. But you should know the affiliate product, it helps if you have used it as then you can write about it with first hand knowledge and recommend it and get some some sort of commission when a visitor buys it from your site.

A thin affiliate is different. Its when you just have a lot of affiliate banners or links on your site, with no research on those banners or links.

Ask yourself why would visitors click on those links, you need to have reviews, videos and good tutorials on your page about the affiliate you are trying to promote.

Getting low quality content from other sites

Have you ever gone and got content from other sites just to help you get more words on your page when you build a website.

Matt says if you go to article sites or sites that offer free articles and include that content on your site be careful. If your site consists of these types of articles users will not be impressed, and your site will not be what users are looking for.

If you do a search for an article on Google and then copy content from that article for your page think about this:

The article is already on Google this means that Google spiders have already indexed those articles and know word for word that article. If you copy or scrape words there’s a good chance you will be damaging your credibility with Google.

You need to have original content on your site and your site will rank higher in Google.

What can you do to rank higher in Google

So what can you do to rank higher in Google? If you have copied content from other sites then go through your site page by page.

Delete pages with similar content, like if you have pages with all the same content apart from the city. Rather include all the cities on that one page, and have outbound links that are no follow to the city you trying to rank for.

Example: Outbound links in your content are really great for your sites SEO and will help you rank higher in Google, especially when you place the primary keyword in the anchor and link to a high authority site.

Do not:

• Do not take an article and spin it, then place the spun article in your content.
• Copy content from other sites just to get extra content, it will not help your site rank higher in Google.
• Have poor articles that are duplicated with only the city changed.

Try to:

• Think about your page topic, write your content in your own words, using both short and long keyword phrases in the content.
• Have at least one image on the page and place your primary keyword in the image alt text, you can even name the image with your primary keyword.
• Have at least 400 to 600 words on a page, more is better Google loves good unique well written content and plenty of it.
• Include descriptive well written headings with a selection of different keywords.

Remove any content you didn’t write yourself, and replace it with unique good quality content written by yourself.

Content should be unique. It must be something you wrote as you have used the product or have experience about the product. Tell your visitors in your own words how good the product is and why they should use it.

If you not writing about a product then write about your experience, tell your story, or get your message out but do it by writing it all in your own words.

Allow comments on the page and visitors can also help to build the page with some great comments and reviews.

At the end of the day Google is looking for the best page for the term searched. If you have a useful compelling page full of great content then who knows, your page could be on page one.

Users would also bookmark your site, tell their friends and subscribe to your RSS feeds and you would have a great website that works, remember content is King.

About Michael John

Hi my name is Michael and I am here to help you create a website that works. If you require any help building your website please contact me. I am the owner of www.2createawebsites.com and would like to help you get online. View all posts by Michael John →