Website Content | How to Get It And Keep It Useful
Content is King. No doubt you've heard this before.
There's just no getting around the fact that in order to attract
visitors you must offer useful, fresh, quality information that
people, and don't forget the search engines, crave.
One of the best ways of obtaining good, useful content is by
writing articles; but hold on a minute, finding an article in an
article bank, placing it on your site and forgetting about it is
not what it's about.
Remember, we said your site must offer useful, fresh, quality
information. Your site won't qualify by uploading rehashed
articles that can be found all over the internet or worse yet,
articles that are aging like fine wine on your site. You risk
losing value and credibility with both viewers and search
engines alike.
Good, quality content can be summed up as offering useful
information that is current and offers new or interesting points
of view. There are several ways to accomplish this and writing
articles is an excellent way of adding content but if you're not
a writer, and believe me most people are not, there are several
ways to add content that is not found everywhere, yet will offer
a new, fresh perspective.
- Use Editorials. Editorials are articles written offering a
personal opinion. Editorials are often food for thought and
invite viewer opinions. Urge guests to your web site to write
relevant editorials for placement on your site. You will often
get good feedback and comments that keep your site interesting
and colorful.
- Have articles written for you. If writing is not your forte,
by all means, have it done for you. Elance.com is an excellent
resource for writing exclusive articles just for you, and it can
be done for as little as $5-$10 each.
- If your an affiliate marketer, use content articles provided
by the merchant. Good affiliate merchant programs will often
have content articles that you can place on your site. Not all
merchants offer this service, but it's a worthwhile benefit for
those that do. The articles are typically very informative and
they include your affiliate links within the articles. An
excellent way to get relevant, useful content and promote your
links as well.
- Exchange articles with guest visitors. If you have a bulletin
board or guest book, invite visitors to exchange articles. If
you use an article, make sure you get exclusivity. When someone
writes for you, make sure they won't submit that same article to
dozens of other web sites and newsletters.
- News Stories Keep your site up to date with the latest news
stories related to your site topic. Use news stories that are
relevant, useful and timely. Simply find a news item you wish to
use and write a brief 2 to 3 line summary on your site, then
include a link to the full story. Remember to keep the news
articles recent and relevant.
- Interviews Depending on your web site topic, find someone that
is well known in the field and ask them to consider conducting
an interview with you. Compose a number of relevant, perhaps
burning questions that many people would be interested in and
compose an answer and question interview. You'd be surprised at
how many interested viewers you might attract.
- Product or book reviews If you endorse a product on your web
site, go the extra step and purchase the product yourself. Use
the product and write a useful review. This not only adds
useful, original content, it creates credibility and establishes
you as an informative resource.
- Post a forum on your site. This often gets lots of interest
because people can post comments, questions, and opinions. It
will also keep viewers returning time and time again to keep up
on the latest forum entries. It's also an excellent way to make
connections and build joint ventures.