If you have a website and you are serious about its web presence then I am sure you must have heard the clichéd line “Content Is King”.
After the Panda update we see many people claiming themselves to be content writers and offering content writing services. I am saying this as the no. of emails that I used to receive for link requests which were nothing but requests for spammy link exchanges are now decreasing and the no. of emails from companies introducing themselves as content writers is on the rise.
Content has been king since the day the first web page was published but now its importance by Google as a ranking factor has made content the most discussed aspect of web presence.
In Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville write, "We define content broadly as 'the stuff in your Web site.' This may include documents, data, applications, e-services, images, audio and video files, personal Web pages, archived e-mail messages, and more. And we include future stuff as well as present stuff."
In today’s context the definition of content has a much broader connotation as along with the stuff on your website it also include the opinions that you share across the social media platforms , comments that you posts on other blogs and also the guest posts that you write, etc.
For such a broad spectrum for content creation, definitely one needs planning and a strategy to implement it successfully.
Usually, people start by publishing blog posts on their blog and think that the bit regarding content creation is taken care of but in fact that is just the first step and then it has to go a long way to reach out to the targeted audience and invite their opinions to add on to the content and make it more qualitative.
The basic questions to ask before creating content are:
·What content do we want to put on the web?
·Why do we want to do publish that content?
·People ask question on search engines. To which questions we can provide answers for?
·How can we give more detailed information regarding the products and services we offer?
·What will be the best medium for that content (Text, video, infographic,etc)?
The content on your site and associated to your persona on the web which is inter-linked on the web via a ripple effect which establishes your expertise. If there is consistency in the content created and shared, if the content is contextual and if your blog has developed a good community along with a good readership list then an authority is established.Hence, quality content contribute to the trust and authority factor.
One of our previous blog posts on http://blog.webpro.in/2011/10/after-link-building-spammers-it-is.html
answers the following related to content creation and content strategy?
Q1) Why do we need more quality content ?
Q2) What is quality content?
Q3) Can borrowed content or content written just for the sake of adding words to your site work in your favour?
Q4) How to come up with quality content regularly?
Along with the regular content on the blog, posting comments on authority blogs, discussing on relevant topics on social media, uploading related videos are some other ways of adding on to the content correlated to your web presence.
In recent times the methodology of creating content has become very simple but to come up with the right strategy to accrue the maximum benefit from the quality content created is the major challenge.
Last but not the least creating fresh content is a constant and a continuous endeavor which does not reap immediate results. It takes years to establish an authority and an identity on the web hence keep going and do not quit.
I’ll share a poem I had read long ago but do not know the name of the author.
This proves the unique content you create may be remembered by generations and may outlive you so please make use of the Authorship markup by Google so that your content does not get published as “Anonymous” in future on the web like the poem below:
"Don't Quit," Author Unknown
When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but do not quit.
Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit-
It's when things go wrong that you must not quit.
