Improve the Web

In the recent year, the website optimization folks (SEO, Internet marketing, usability, etc) have started paying more attention to the importance of having quality content on their sites and sites of their clients. But what is the quality content that everyone is talking and advising about?

Quality content is content written for the site visitors. Quality content is aimed to benefit the readers by providing information, relevant to their search query, providing educational, objective, entertaining, amusing or exciting information. The whole purpose of quality content is for the potential client use it for him- or herself.

While there may have been examples of quality content, there is little known on how to create quality content.

General principles for creating quality content are:

• it has to be relevant to the main topic of the site (about product or products, services, etc)
• it has to provide value to the potential customers
• the content can fit in the general industry of the website (about related products or services)

The benefits of quality content are:

• increased customer-to-client conversions (because they understand why and how use your product/service)
• increased search engine traffic (because more pages with content mean more visibility, along with the Long Tail of search)
• more natural, quality and relevant links (because they will be pointing from established sites in the same industry as yours, from within the context and with the relevant keywords)

Where to get quality content?

The best way is to write it yourself. If you don't write, start writing, because only you know what your product is about, its benefits to the people, the people, who use it, and reasons why the do that. Here's a short checklist, for now:

• start writing (any amount of text, regularly)
• focus on the benefits on your product
• format the text for the Web
• provide numerous points of view on your product
• provide value
• do keyword research
• write natural titles
• write naturally, only then include a couple of keywords to keep your copy readable

And, above all, once you know what to do, be patience, hard-working and responsive to what other knowledgeable people say.

Where to learn more about copywriting:

• Cre8asite Forums Copywriting section
• CopyBlogger (a whole blog about copywriting)
• let me know what you need to know

Additional information about what quality content is:

• V7N Blog, "What is quality content?"
• AskBee, "Relevant content, why does it count?"