If you’re here you’ve certainly heard the expression ‘content is king’ in the context of SEO.
But after the Google Helpful Content update that rolled out on Sept 14, and in consideration of the many ‘good’ sites that got whacked, this Reddit users is wondering if that still holds true.
Considering this person mentions cadence and velocity, I’d bet that they have followed a popular recent concept of getting rankings by publishing a high volume of content very quickly. This concept surfaced around 2019 and site owners would publish 1000+ posts usually over a year. The content was decently well written and generally accurate but it wasn’t great.
Here’s my take:
The concept of publishing a high volume of mediocre content (that you pretended was kingly) has righteously ended. Content is king though has never stood on its own; the best content has always need some external factor to get traction.
Let me elaborate on that.
As we head into 2024
and the Helpful Content is behind us, ‘content is king’ still holds true. Content is the foundation of SEO efforts and without it you won’t get traffic. BUT content alone, even if it is truly ‘kingly’, will not move the needle. Search engines still rely on external signals to determine how valuable the content is, and probably always will.
I think we can all agree quality backlinks are a major ranking factor. Personally, I don’t like building backlinks and one of the things I am working on now is building branded traffic which I believe is a ranking signal.