When I started this (admittedly languished at times) blog many years ago, I wrote about why content is king on the web.

Today I’m here, older, wiser, and worse-for-the-wear from raising a very energetic toddler to let you know that this pretty much hasn’t changed.

Publishing great content will always be rewarded, and never go out of style.

I was doing some work within Google Webmaster Tools for a client of mine this morning and came across this interesting section quoted below.

According to Google, if you want to rank well in its search engine results you need to be providing high quality content.

It’s as simple as that.

I’m sharing this because I see too many people become obsessed with the smaller nuances of SEO to the point where they lose sight of the big picture. It’s really not that complex. Make great content and make it accessible to as many people as possible. Don’t sweat the small stuff unless there’s a compelling reason and you have the time, money, energy, and desire to do so. Most of us have bigger fish to try.

The following excerpt is taken directly from Google’s Search Console introductory article:

How do I make my site appear first in Google Search results?

Everyone asks us this question. The answer is: there is no secret, there are only good practices. Here are the best practices for improving your ranking in Google search results:

• Provide high quality content on your site. Google tries to find the best answer for our users’ requests; if you write the best material, you’re in the game. Use the Search Analytics report to see which queries lead to your pages, and what the click-through rate is for links to your site.
• Make your site mobile friendly. Many users search on mobile devices; our search results favor pages that we think answer the user’s request best with the best possible user experience on their platform.
• Use informative titles and snippets. Good, clear titles and accurate meta tag descriptions help us understand the purpose of a page and generate useful snippets in our search results. Learn more.
• Add structured data to enable additional search result features such as stars, event information, or site search boxes, which add to the user experience, making your site more valuable to readers. Read more about structured data or use our tools.
• Make sure that you follow our guidelines for good sites and avoid pitfalls that could affect your search ratings.