It is a long undisputed fact that the content of a website is King. Just like a book, good content is enjoyed by many. The difference between the content of a book and a website is that a book does not get updated at all while a website could not only be update but it could also contain dynamic content, content that plays sound and animation, some even allow interaction.
While content is King, it’s now a question of whether the King is a good one. Many do not have an inkling on what makes a good content. In this article, I will explore the various ways of making good website content. The concepts that I cover will be applicable to websites in general, may it be personal websites and blogs, corporate websites, or sites of any particular interest.
Laying The Foundation
Before you create a website, you must identify the goal of the website. Will it be a personal website where you share the random happenings in your life? Or will it be specifically theme? Like perhaps a site that’s all about dogs? Or will it be corporate website for your business? It is VERY important to identify the purpose of your site as this is the point where you also identify your intended readers.
Perhaps you have no idea on what theme should your site be based on yet but you’ve already had a target audience in mind. So let’s say you intend to have teenage girls as your target audience, then topics such as make-up and latest fashion would clearly be a better choice than talking about parenting. ๐
For corporate websites, it’s a no-brainer as your website content would be details of your company, your product(s) and / or service(s) and various other details such as your portfolio and contact details.
Making Good Content
What makes a good content?
For a personal or interest-related website, good content would be one that’s either informative or entertaining or both without straying from the theme. While it doesn’t make sense for anyone to spend time reading about what you do everyday, composing your content in an entertaining way and it might be worth the time after all. Learn to stick with the theme, if the website was about fashion for teenage girls then it wouldn’t be a good idea to write about parenting.
For corporate websites, good content would be one that’s understandable and portrays well your corporate identity. The content does not need to be overwhelming, I mean really – how much information could you stuff into a company website? A small company is very unlikely to have content like that of Microsoft or any of the big guns. More importantly, the content must provide sufficient details on your product(s) and / or service(s) and also the all-important – contact details.
If possible, try to include a portfolio of what you’ve done so far, portfolios lend credibility and helps gain confidence. I have met people who fear publishing pictures or artwork on their website, the thought of people copying their work and all. Seriously, as long as ideas left your head, it’s bound to end up somewhere sooner or later. Sure, you may not display them on the website, then what about printed materials? They can be copied too. So like it or not, any of your work that’s published has a chance to be copied but is your work really so great that it’s actually worth protecting at a cost of establishing an online portfolio that could eventually bring business?
It is also possible to use blog on a corporate website, however that depends on what industry you’re in and whether you have anyone that could come up with good content for it.
Publishing Latest News Does Not Make Good Content
There are quite a number of sites that just publish news taken from various places be it within a specific theme or not. This does not make a good content, your site would be just a central repository of news from various sources and that’s it. If you still wish to do so, then my advice is that you should at least have the decency to post some content of your own, perhaps your opinion regarding that particular news.
Though being news hub isn’t wrong, it won’t make your content good or great in any way. After all what you did was just using a bit of your time to put up what others had written.
Avoid Bad Content
Wow, is there such a thing as bad content? Apparently there is. Websites that are susceptible to bad content are usually blogs. While this is the Internet where we have the freedom of speech, such freedom doesn’t come without cost.
Recently I came by a blog, the author talked about the stress and many other things she face in her line of work. There she also hurled quite a few opinion about her boss. Now contents like this do make a blog interesting but what happens if your boss happen to find out the blog? Where would you stand now in your relationship with your superior? And what about future employment?
Look, anyone could be the bitchiest bitch or the badass bronco of the blogosphere but where does this lead to? Your blog may be popular but is it really you? Are you going to be a pretender just because you want blog traffic? Are you willing to tarnish your reputation just for your blog? The choice is up to the individual, just bear in mind the consequences.
So Where Do You Stand?
I hope this article has brought you greater understanding on how important it is to plan ahead for your website and it’s content. Content is the drawing power, content is the retaining power, content is the entertaining power. If someone browses your site just to have a look at the design and nothing else, you should do something about your content.
Do you know someone who’s about to start a blog or a website? Tell them what youรขโฌโขve learned today. ๐ Feel free to contact me should you need assistance for your site.
What makes content a good king..?
Good copywriting… LOL!
It has to entice, engage, attract and deliver the communication message to the reader or user. Definetely not a 1-page sales letter but an easy to read and understand content driven website.
As much as you feel content is boring or ‘too much text’, users do read it. ๐
yup. good content is not judged by length. whether it’s entertaining or not, it’s entirely up to individual.
I think we will need to organize the content nicely as well to keep the reader; constantly jumping here and there will definitely make the reader lose interest..
Each type of content will have its own group of audience, its just the matter how you present it to them ๐
Gosh, I wish I could write like you! LOL. I own a blog out of pleasure just to play around with the blog theme and layout ‘cuz I like designing. Of course, it would be great if my blog has regular readers but since I don’t have a passion to write (my vocab sux), I hardly see anyone leaving a mark there. :p
So, what makes a good content without the need to write much?
Winston, since you like designing and playing around with blog themes, how about using that for your blog content?
good content without having to write much? if you’re able to draw / design, then you could release a new piece of art each week. ๐ Just like comics in newspaper.
Heya BABES!
anywya, just passing by and sharing this wonderful information.
I “think” http://www.hakia.com
would be a hiking new tech. in future?
check out this article.
~ Hakia Takes On Google With Semantic Technologies ~
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/hakia_takes_on_google_semantic_search.php
I like this part, where is said…
[Quote]
“… it forces people to be linguists, which is not a common skill.”
Cheers people!
Brian should write about… search engines.
would it be your sort of cup of tea?
I might, I did have a topic on using search engine earlier. ๐ No articles on understanding Search Engines yet.
Well, I’ll make my content a good Queen as I can’t make it a good King o.O Too messy haha.. and yea, I did post some sad stuff in my life, hope it’s not bad content :s Just a form of expressing and somehow felt better after doing so ^^ I got too much to blog about but won’t be entertaining, so I agree with ya, need to think 1st before posting ๐
รขโฌลรขโฌยฆ it forces people to be linguists, which is not a common skill.รขโฌย
it is true