People continuously announce that content is king, if you do a search you are likely to find that the top sites all have a lot of content. However, the pure issue here is that these people are making these assumptions on a correlation research basis. This means that people see top sites that have a load of content and assume that, that is the best way to the top, unfortunately it is not that easy.

When someone does a search they are looking for information and the search engines job is to provide them with relevant websites. Now this is where people start to over simplify, think of it this way;

Take 10 new, equal sites, all 10 use the same keywords, all are 10 pages long with the same content, one of these sites has 100 backlinks for each keyword, which ranks the highest? The one with the most relevant backlinks will, it’s that simple.

Yes create great content, unless you want them to press back after a quick skim of your site, but do not underestimate backlink building. Warning, avoid link exchanges at all costs they are bad for ratings and can damage your PR in some cases of excessive link exchanging.

Here are a few simple things you can do to increase backlinks whilst still adding fresh content to your website.

1. Do you publish an ezine? If so add a file to your index for each issue and archive it online. This will bring all kinds of keyword rich content to your website on a constant basis. However, at the same time, you can bring up these specific ezine page urls in forums and article, generating backlinks making that keyword rich article rank well.

2. Start an article page. Add new articles to it. Register to niche related ezines.

3. Think outside the box. It is worthwhile to continue to think of new and easy ways to keep adding fresh content to your website. However, do not start posting incorrect information, people do unfortunately believe what they read and your blog/website will quickly be seen as an avoid at all cost URL.

In conclusion content is not king, many strongly dominated keyword searches are occupied by websites with only a few pages. After a lot of research and testing over multiple years there is no doubt that an 8 page website with good content with good, targeted backlinks will always do better for targeted keywords then a 100 page website with only a few backlinks. This becomes clear when you have a large website and a small one and compare visitor stats, a large website will get a great amount of random traffic then a small, well created, well linked site will.

Having a massive website when your niche does not require it is simply like throwing mud as a wall, you blast out keywords and hope for traffic, rather than being specific and giving your users an uncomplicated navigational path through your website.

It is time consuming at first, but the payoff in the long run is worth the effort when the search engines reward your effort and your traffic and income grow proportionally as well.