List after list have been compiled by bloggers on the things that make blogs successful – but on every one that I’ve ever seen has been a statement about content being the ultimate key. ‘Content is King’ is a catch cry that has echoed through the blogosphere for years and while at times I think it’s been used to the point of ignoring other aspects of what makes a successful blog – it really is what a good blog boils down to.
What is Good Content?
Ultimately defining what is ‘good content’ is a subjective exercise (perhaps in a similar way to defining what is a ‘good book’ or a ‘good movie’) and so a post like this one is likely to cause a little debate as each person will define it differently depending upon their personality, their needs, the topic that they are talking about and perhaps even their ethics. Not only will bloggers themselves each have a different view on what is ‘good’ content – but readers tend to also. I know that every time I ask for feedback on ProBlogger and what I write more about I get a real spectrum of responses.
Future posts in this series is an attempt to unpack some of the elements of content that might go towards making it good – or not. At most points along the way there will be debate but hopefully out of it readers will be able to mix and match the elements and identify what works for them.
So without any more introductory remarks, lets get into it with the first element of writing quality content:
Usefulness and Uniqueness - As this post is a part of a series of posts that get back to the basics of blogging and so I will start unpacking the topic of ‘writing good content’ with perhaps the most basic and obvious point of all:
‘for a blog to be successful your content needs to be useful and unique to your readers’
As I say – it’s not rocket science but it’s a factor that I think bloggers need to continually be asking themselves about as they review their blogging. Is your blog useful?
Back in the days when I studied marketing I remember sitting in lecture after lecture getting more and more frustrated as I heard my lecturers drum into us the same thing time after time. Although they said it in different ways, the lessons that they communicated was largely the same in every instance and boiled down to this:
‘Start with the customer – find out what they want and give it to them.’
This is a good lesson for bloggers also.
While I would also recommend that you start with yourself as a blogger and blog out of your own passions, experiences and knowledge – it is essential that you are aware of your reader and that you create content that will add something to their lives. Give them something useful.
What is ‘useful’ content?
Of course ‘useful content’ to me is different from what it is to you, but could be any of the following:
- Entertainment – increasingly blogs are being used as entertainment. People are going to them for laughs, for gossip and for fun conversation.
- Education – some blog readers are primarily interested in learning something about a given topic.
- Information – many successful blogs are built on the thirst that some have to be informed on an issue, product or topic
- Debate – some blog readers want a place that they can have a good old fashioned dialogue, debate or even a fight over an issue
- News – many blog readers just want to be kept up to date in a field
- Community – I’m aware of some very successful blogs that tap into the need that people have to connect and belong. Quite often the topic is secondary to these connections.
This list could of course be a lot longer (feel free to add to it in comments). Each blog has the potential to be ‘useful’ in a different way and it would probably be unwise to start a blog that tried to be all of these things at once (although many blogs do do a variety of these things at once).
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