Quality Content: How Do You Decide

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When it comes to building a successful blog, Content is king. ‘Focus on quality‘, you’ve been told. Quality content is what is more important if you want you blog to be successful, they say. But… What the heck is quality content, you wonder. More importantly, how do you decide if your work is ‘quality’ or not.

 Most of us started blogging for the fun of it. At least, most of all who I know did. Then there were some, who over the years got busy and dropped out and then there are quite a few who even today, are quite okay with writing for themselves alone. But what about those bloggers who struggle to establish their blog as a brand? You need quality content there, to market yourself, you know… If you want google to recognise you or you need more followers and fans, you definitely need content that can be ‘mentionable’.

What is Quality Content 

Quality Content are the kind of posts that will make you stand out. It adds to some sort of knowledge. That knowledge doesn’t necessarily need to be educational or informational, it could be entertainment, relaxation, arts or crafts or food or whatever. You don’t have to be an expert on anything to write that. I like to call it as a message to your audience. Something from your heart to theirs or your mind to theirs. Since we are talking about marketing a brand, think of it as selling a product to your audience. Think of it as content that rewards them for their time… to take with them… to share the word… to review and enjoy even after they have left your page.

How do you decide if your content has quality.

Here are a couple of things you should ask yourself before you press that publish button.

1. Recognise who your target audience is: If you want to write for women aged forty plus, then you will need to consider what they’d prefer reading. If you want to write for moms, then you will have to have something for them. Who are you selling to, that is.
2. What is the message your article sends? Does it inspire, entertain, educate, empathise? Does it give some sort of an information to them? What is it that they can take with them. If you are into food, for example. What does telling your audience that you made something and it tasted so great and that your family was drooling for more, give the person sitting miles away and reading that at 5am? Now, instead, if you posted your recipe with it, they’d have something to try someday. They didn’t waste their morning drooling over your picture. But on the other hand, say, it was an art that you shared. Now, that would be a different story. You made a silk ribbon brooch but didn’t share the instructions. In my opinion, that’s okay because we artists collect eye candy that can be replicated quite easily. It is called inspiration. You are still giving something. Inspiration is something too.
3. Would you read it? Would you read what you have written when you’ve had a hard day at work or if your children have tired you to the bone? For example, me, I never read sarcasm or politics. I won’t read it even if you paid me to. But, if that sarcasm or politics was for a cause or it was to bring forward a point in a debate, a debate that could impact my life, I would. What I mean to say is, people generally avoid rants unless it was part of a bigger picture.
4. Would you share it? Would you Pin, Tweet, Like, +1 or share the article on some network? Would you recommend it to your friends or people from your niche? Isn’t that the main purpose for quality articles, again? To want more people to read you and recommend you?

That is my four points for quality there. What do you think?
How do you decide what should go on your blog and what shouldn’t? Do you worry about your blog’s image? Do you think a website can get successful without quality content too?

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