Content is King and it’s not about to change
It’s quite staggering how things change on the web, or rather how things change in Website design from one trend to the next.
I remember about 5 or 6 years ago hearing about Mobile, it was to be the next big thing and we all had to prepare for it, then other trends have stood out. Video – everything was going t be on Video, then came Text – we’d be able to use any font and websites would all be much more like Magazines allowing designers to be more imaginative with plain old text.
In amongst all these trends were more technical sub-trends, SEO, Flash (demise of), HTML5, CSS and how websites were constructed – it all mattered.
The strange thing with all these trends is that they all became self fulfilling prophecies, because people thought they would happen they did and that all makes sense. But the lesson to be learned here is to listen to the trends.
So back to the title of this Blog – Content is King – well it’s the trend at the moment, everything at the moment is about ‘Responsive Web Design’ and essentially this means making sure your website works on Desktops, Mobiles, iPads and any other device you might think of. The main issue being that your website should put content first every time and that content should be the same (although presented differently) regardless of the display.
Ultimately, what it means is that we designers cannot choose how people will look at our work, on a Galaxy III, an iPad, a mini-portable or a giant web enabled TV, we must be prepared to present everything the consumer wants to know regardless of how they choose to view it.
That’s a big ask.
So the trend is ‘Content is King – regardless of how it is viewed’ – and I would put it that Google too agrees with this sentiment.
We’ve recently seen a whole series of updates to the way Google indexes our search pages and these again and again Google are putting value on the content we produce. Ultimately they are looking less at the construction of the website (so long as it works) and they are penalising those that try to artificially promote their websites by creating links back to their websites… Google are looking for quality recommendations (thus the emphasis on Social Media sites)… however more than anything else they are looking for changing content.
So – the take away bit… think about your content carefully… add to it, make new content and get your pens out – you need to add more content to your website all the time if it is grow. This is the trend and it’s one we need to follow. Google’s emphasis on fresh content is not about to change.