Nothing is for sale here. Freewill tips keep the site running. Want to help? → Tip via Paypal

Content Creation

To put it bluntly, your site can drown in a sea of mediocrity and sameness, or it can float like a fine yacht upon that sea—it all depends on your content. Assuming you want your site to rise above the drowning masses, here are my keys to creating successful content, and hence, a successful website:

• Usefulness
• Creativity
• Uniqueness
• Quality

Let’s take a brief look at these items.

» Usefulness

Anything that makes your site useful to others is a vital asset to nurture. It may be helpful, heart-warming, educational, entertaining, funny, inspirational, factual—whatever. As long as it engages the visitor in any kind of meaningful way it is useful. In other words, it has to provide value of some kind.

Value is often a misunderstood commodity. Value can be derived from thoughtful commentary or silly jokes, from artistic photography to helpful tutorials, or from many other forms of content and styles of presentation. If the reader benefits from your content, it has value. It won't be valuable to everyone, that's only natural. Determine who your target audience is and write with them in mind while also being true to yourself.

» Creativity and Uniqueness

Creativity in presentation sets your site apart visually. Writing in your own style or “voice” and using your own words and ideas sets your site apart intellectually.

We build sites to offer our own voice to the world, not to be a copycat. If all we do is play “monkey see, monkey do” then we’re not serving ourself or others nearly as well as we could. As Judy Garland said, “Always be a first-rate version of yourself rather than a second-rate version of someone else.”

Remember this…

...no one can be you as well as you can, and you cannot be anyone else as well as you can be yourself. It’s your destiny to be you, don’t betray your destiny by trying to be like someone else. Find your own voice and write about your own ideas. You are more than good enough.

If that isn’t reason enough to create your own content, then consider this: search engines tend to reward unique content with a higher score as long as it's relevant to the search query. That means your site may rank higher in the search engine results pages if you put in the work. I say "may" because there are many other factors involved.

» Quality

There is no substitute for quality. One of my favorite quotes about quality comes from Bob Moawad, “Quality begins on the inside and then works its way out.”

Without quality your uniqueness and creativity will be lost among the multitude of half-efforts. Here’s a content creation secret that escapes many folks:

Creating quality content is largely a matter of going just one step further than good enough.

Too many webmasters create content once and think they’re done. Every successful webmaster I know, myself included, creates content, then goes back over it several times tweaking it, adding to it, taking things out of it, working it from a first creation to a quality creation.

Quality is seldom instant. If it were, every site would be high quality, and that’s obviously not true.

» Originality

Originality and uniqueness may sound the same, but there’s a crucial difference. You can be unique in presenting known ideas, but originality means coming up with new ideas. It’s fine to offer your own perspective on popular topics, in fact, I recommend it—but also try to create content that no one is discussing. At least occasionally, be a fire starter rather than a smoke detector.

It only takes one original idea that catches on to spark a firestorm of traffic to your website. Easier said than done, of course, or everyone would do it. Don’t let the difficulty stop you from trying. It only takes ONE idea to flood your site with traffic.

Bonus Tips

» One Theme

If you want search engine success your site should be focused around one theme. One theme may sound restrictive, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, if you were doing a site on stress in the work place you can have serious content about ways to cope; and take a humorous look at ways not to deal with it. Be creative.

One tactic many find useful is to try to imagine what you’d find if you were the visitor and someone else were making the site. What would John Cleese do with it, or Paul Harvey, or Dear Abby, or anyone you enjoy or admire? Try to think like they do to come up with new ideas.

Some people feel they aren’t special enough to allow their personality, creativity, and originality shine through on their web pages. If that’s you, at the risk of sounding redundant, I want you to know my thinking on the topic…

Believe in you—because I certainly do, without even knowing you! Here's why: from the beginning of time through all eternity, there is only one you. That makes you very special indeed. You are better than one-in-a-million …or a billion or a trillion …you are one-in-an-eternity! Think about that. You ARE that special, so why would you ever want to play follow-the-leader? You rock, so rock on my friend!

» Serve Others

Serving the needs of others means traffic for you. In fact, the revered Albert Schweitzer said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

I try to entertain as I serve a purpose. Sure, some folks think I’m nuts, but that’s just a lucky guess.

Think about what kind of service you could offer. Put up a FAQ page on your topic, or tutorials. You don’t have to be an expert, there are plenty of people who know less who could benefit from what you know. If you get questions you don’t know the answer to, find the answers. This isn’t rocket science. Do that and you’ll have new content and something fresh to offer. There are many ways to serve others, find your own angle and go with it.

» Friendliness

Think about your favorite sites. Do they have a sterile, officious tone or do they have a bit of personality? I think the answer for most people will be the latter.

One of the nicest unsolicited comments I’ve ever received said, “I really love your site, it feels like you’re right there with me.”

That’s the kind of comment that makes you feel like you’ve done a good job. It doesn’t pay the bills but it feels pretty good just the same. The point is, write for your website like you talk to your friends and you’ll be on the right track, providing you’re not a complete jerk in real life.

If you are a complete jerk in real life, then . . . stop it out!

Even business sites can benefit from having a little personality to them. One of the complaints I’ve repeatedly heard about websites is that they are sterile. No personality, antiseptic writing, and a lack of imagination and creativity all add up to BORING!

» Work It On Out

Keep working good ideas. If you have a page you’re happy with or get compliments about, find a way to expand on the idea with related material. That’s basically how my original site grew from about 15 pages to over 500 pages before I started splitting up the content into multiple sites.

Here’s an example . . . suppose you have a site about car care. You post an article titled “10 Tips to Extend Your Engine’s Life” and it’s a big hit. What next? How about 10 Tips for a Healthy Transmission? 10 Tips to Prevent Rust?

Get the idea? Of course you do, you’re smart!

» Growth

And finally, adding new material regularly brings visitors back time and time again and keeps the search engine spiders coming around more often. By the way, search engines prefer sites with a large footprint, so more is better as long as it's relevant to the site's content theme.

Unfortunately, too many websites just sit there gathering digital dust with no new content added for months at a time.

Think about this . . . how often do you go back to sites than never change and never add content? In most cases, the answer is probably “not often.” Your visitors and the search engine spiders behave the same way.

» Final Thought

I won’t lie to you, creating a successful website isn’t easy. If it were, everyone would have one. It takes effort and perseverance. And . . . it’s worth the journey.