Why writing good content is important
22nd February 2010 by Sarah Howard
Reading a blog on SEOmoz surrounding the idea that great content is not always necessary to boost search rankings got me thinking… I always strive to write good, audience-specific content with punchy titles and a bit of personality mixed in there for good measure, but is this really needed?
After reading the blog a number of times I only re-enforced my own belief that writing good quality content is key to a successful marketing strategy…
Yes, it is important to add internal links to content but you also have to inspire your audience to link back to your work. Creating a piece of content just to promote a specific keyword, without offering anything new or informative will not engage your audience. If this content fails to allure and interest them, they will not bother to finish digesting it, let alone create external links, comment, share and contemplate on it. Making such content easy to share and create connections is perhaps one of the most important goals of any content marketing strategy.
Yes, mediocre, poorly written content can be successful if marketed by popular, in fashion organisations, but that doesn’t mean that we should all follow suit. The web is full to the brim with average, run-of-the-mill content, so isn’t it best to create content that will captivate your audience, generating increased external links, raising your authority in your industry feed and tying in nicely with your en vogue social media strategies?
Great content doesn’t necessarily have to mean traditional articles or web copy, it can be in the form of vibrant and attention grabbing podcasts, opinion fuelled blogs, video, mobile content or even digital magazines. Good quality content has to use a multitude of communication channels to succeed and be relevant to today’s ever innovating world, standing out in amongst a plethora of images and sounds.
Randfish summarises in his blog that ”Like many parts of life – it’s not about the quality, diligence or aptitude you bring to your field, but your ability to market it successfully.”
I disagree and make my own summary that writing good content is in itself marketing. Ok so it’s not enough just to create good content and leave it floating, but by adding elements to your content such as a retweet or share button, or a comments and reviews feature, you can measure just how successful your content really is at convincing your audience to take a particular action. Quickly running up average content may engage a reader in the short term, but creating great content will forge links for the future and allow the content to be re-used in a variety of different communication mediums.