People say content is king. When high-profile researchers like Forrester Research published findings that claimed content to be the single-most motivating force for getting people to go online, every site owner suddenly started loading their sites with massive amounts of content. Such sudden content hype made everyone think of content more critically.

However, in this post I’ll attempt to disprove the statement about the royalty status of web content—at least in one important instance.

So when isn’t content king, prince or any other royal figure? The fact that people go to the internet to get content is true. Many studies worldwide show that the internet beats radio, television, and magazines as an information resource. However, searching for information isn’t the same thing as shopping.

When shopping online, web users do not necessarily search for content. In this instance, content’s role is only to inform shoppers about buying choices. And when people want content, they don’t generally browse e-shops. Instead surfers will look for sites that specialize in providing credible, authoritative, and compelling content.

If you stuff your e-commerce site with content just for the sake of adding words, it will be hopeless at best. Why? Because your site won’t drive the right kind of traffic. Traffic does no good unless it converts at a reasonable 2-4 percentage rate.

Offline, when we go to a store, there is a salesperson to give us information (content) to help us decide to purchase something. Well, online, (at least for now :)) e-commerce sites need content to compensate for the absence of a real sales-person. So content for e-commerce sites must be concise, understandable, and stick to the point of supporting site’s sales objectives. To improve their content, site owners use lots of various cutting-edge analytics to spot the things that cause problems and identify opportunities to achieve the desired results.

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Many people have never heard of Google Base – and if they have, aren’t really sure what it does.  This tool, found by logging into your Google profile and clicking on “Base”, allows you to upload all of your content directly into a Google information database. 

Google Base gives you full control over your content with its WYSIWYG editor.  Unlike many other places where you can distribute content, Google Base allows for unlimited use of anchor text, images, formatting, and even offers stats. 

Still, the impact of Google Base is elusive… I’m experimenting with it by posting some articles and press releases on it – mostly for the anchor text, but also to see if Base drives any traffic.  There have been a few hits on the content, but nothing to get excited about. 

I think where Base will really shine is for home shopping or car shopping or types of shopping where products have lots of attributes.  For example, you could use Google to find all 4 bedroom houses with a pool and a 3 car garage in San Diego – rather than going just to one site’s MLS listing.  Same with cars – search for all 2004 blue BMW 325i’s within 100 miles of your house instead of going to one site and viewing their listings. 

This is a hunch – anyone else have any personal experiences or theories about the direction of Base?  Leave a comment and share!

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