Web Content Mass + Keyword Optimization + Links = SEO

Highlights from the article "Web Content Mass + Keyword Optimization + Links = SEO" by Joel Walsh from SEO News:

How does web content really affect SEO? It's often said that the answer is simply that content does not affect SEO very much – it's all about more technical issues. Yet a website's content still plays an enormous and fairly direct role in search engine ranking.

Of course, the whole goal of the search engines' ranking schemes is precisely to deliver good, relevant content to users. The mechanism for how search engines select and reward good, relevant content is essentially just a technical issue, though admittedly an extremely important technical issue.

Walsh's articles focuses on three major factors that can determine good search rankings: inbound links, content mass, and keyword optimization. Of course, this is not news. Some engines do place weight on the number of quality weblinks leading to your website. By quality we mean, of course, websites of equal or greater relevance - it's important to avoid FFA (free for all) link sites that are basically respositories for links to irrelevant and at times pornographic sites and "splogs" (weblogs produced for spamming purposes). If you maintain a website dedicated to a favorite baseball team, for example, it is better to have a link to your site from the team's official site than to have one from a site that is less relevant to sports in general.

Content mass: the more webpages you have, the more chances you have to attract a spider's attention. More content, more information can lead to more search results - not necessarily limited to one search phrase - and more opportunity for quality, relevant websites to link back to yours. Getting back to your baseball team's website - it is better to have a separate webpage for each member of the team than to have one page featuring all players. A webmaster maintaining the official site of the team's star player may find your site and link back, or a baseball blog may find the information on your site useful and link back to it.

Keyword optimization - a delicate balance of saturation, prominence in text, variation, and research. If you utilize Yahoo/Overture PPC, take advantage of their keyword tool to help you determine the relevant keyword searches your target audience uses.