There is content, and there is content. In the conversation economy (fueled by social media and social networking websites) the content you publish on your website can make or break your business. It depends on what direction you want to take, whether you want to be a noise, or a voice.
Low-quality content turns your content into noise. What are the traits that tell you that you’ve got low-quality content?
- Your search engine traffic doesn’t increase.
- Even if your search engine traffic increases, your conversion rate remains poor.
- Nobody finds it useful, relevant or topical.
- Your repeat traffic is very low.
- Nobody promotes your links but you.
- Not many people link to your blog or website.
- Nobody talks about what you publish.
- Even if people promote your link, it is due to some controversy regarding your views or opinion.
High-quality content on the other hand gives you a voice. Whereas people tend to ignore a noise, they pay attention to a voice. So what features of your content make it a voice?
- It improves your search engine rankings for relevant keywords.
- Your visitors find your content useful and they subscribe to your RSS feed updates or email newsletter, if available.
- People share your links with their visitors, followers, friends and colleagues using social media and social networking websites and they respect your opinion.
- The other bloggers and publishers love to link to your content as valuable reference.
- You are eventually able to establish your authority.
As a professional content writer and online copywriter I’ve observed client fall into the "noise" content trap when they quickly want to improve their search engine rankings without putting sufficient emphasis on the quality. Sure, noisy content does increase your search engine traffic, but then that traffic is simply a crowd. Only quality content, content that carries a voice, gets you customers and clients, and loyal readers.
