Give Your Site Visitors Something to Talk About - Getting the Best Content
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As I already mentioned, you want to start out by researching your field. That means going to the forums, blogs, and online communities where those in your field hang out and talk shop. Keep track of the questions and topics that crop up most frequently and garner the most interest. Use what you’ve learned when you’re building your website. If you’re operating a juggling shop with an online presence, for example, and you see hundreds of people complaining about a lack of information on juggling objects of wildly varying weights together, you would be wise to address the lack with a good article or two to set you apart from the competition.
Another good reason to research your field is that it will tell you who the industry experts are. Every industry has them, and if you can enlist their help, even in a small way, you gain an edge. Invite them to publish articles on your site, review some of your work, or even just offer a few quotes you can use. This gives them exposure as well, and provides a natural tie-in for both of you for promotion. I’ll talk more about ways to use experts on your site when I discuss link-worthy ideas.
Experts are great resources, and your site should be as well. In fact, if you can give your visitors a document that serves as a one-stop resource for what they might want, you gain another competitive edge. People will recommend your site as featuring the best overview of the topic. It’s important when you compose this document to keep your readers in mind, of course. Don’t go too broad; still, you should cover every side of their interests while staying focused on your message. (Nobody said creating great content is easy).
While we’re talking about the nature of the information you provide, consider this: is there some content you can put on your site that is not available anywhere else? Visitors will appreciate unique content and recommend it to others. Try to include this kind of data when you’re working on the content outline for your site.
The “setting” of your content is important as well. Just as you wouldn’t put a diamond in a base and distracting setting, be aware of how your content looks surrounded by the ads on your site. Most Web surfers find ads to be distracting, and have developed fine, hypersensitive antennas for overly commercialized sites. They will tell their friends to stay away from sites that feature too many prominent and/or distracting ads. If you must post advertising, do so discreetly.
I will make one final point about your content. Good content, is, well, good, but you should strive for great content. Producing content that is so great it becomes the “industry standard” on the Internet will get you a tremendous amount of traffic, recommendations, and referrals. To be the source of all this gets you far more value than having lots of articles that are rarely read or linked to. If you must choose, choose quality over quantity.
Next: Making Your Site Linkable >>
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