SIX WAYS TO MAKE YOUR CONTENT BETTER

WHAT MAKES CONTENT GOOD? AND HOW TO MAKE YOURS BETTER.

Over a year ago now I wrote a whole post on the topic of what makes a blog and blog content good (you can read the features here, here & here), and if I’m honest, my opinion hasn’t changed, for me a great blog and in turn great content is all about integrity, originality and passion. My favourite blogs have all these things, and because of their original nature, I still go back daily or weekly to read new content.

But what’s so wonderful about all my favourite blogs and what I try hard to share on my own blog, is passion. Passion is what makes the content so engaging, so interesting, informing or inspiring. The creativity inspires, the editorial informs, and concept excites. And it’s that magic formula I, and i’m sure you too, always try to deliver … to constantly improve and to constantly make our content better.

So today I thought i’d focus on the latter. How we can make our content better, how we can constantly use our passion and motivation to produce new features that excite and interest our loyal readers, and new ones too.

. WHAT MAKES CONTENT GOOD . WHAT MAKES A BLOG WORTH READING . WHAT MAKES A BLOG GOOD .

SIX WAYS TO MAKE YOUR CONTENT BETTER

#1 OUTSIDE THE BOX (AKA: BE CREATIVE)

Firstly, now more than ever, creativity has become such an important part of blogging. In reality most of us started our blogs as a creative outlet for our passions, and that’s not changed. But as the industry has grown, and blogging has become a real ‘thing’, creativity in turn has become even more important, but not just creativity, original creativity. Constantly thinking outside the box to bring new ideas to life, new photography styles, new content themes, new ideas. With tons of copy cats out there, thinking outside the box and bringing fresh, original and personal content to life on your own blog is a key factor in creating better content. Photography, Topics, Design, Blog Titles, Editorial.

#2 QUALITY

Quality can mean a whole range of things, quality of writing (typo’s, grammar, story telling), quality of photography and imagery (clear, original, high resolution), quality of the topics you write about, quality of your overall blog (consistency, originality, integrity) etc. But quality is what will make content shine, attract people to it, and make them come back again. Something I am working on and think is a really good filter to keep in mind when we’re wanting to make our content better, is quality over quantity. For me it relates to my blogging frequency, and putting less pressure on myself to blog daily (i’ve blogged everyday for over 4 years now), focussing on quality features rather than quantity. But for you it may mean something different … but if we want to improve our content. Then think, QUALITY.

#3 IT’S NEVER WRONG

Remembering that when it comes to blogging there truly is no right or wrong, for me, is the most important thing we all must remember. It’s human instinct to fear failure and to compare ourselves to others (and others success), but success in this space is subjective (I shared all my thoughts on ‘what is success’ here & the article just happened to be featured in Blogosphere magazine too), perfection is irrelevant, and ‘right’ simply doesn’t exist.

I often get asked questions from other bloggers, new bloggers or aspiring bloggers what they ought to do, how to blog, what they need to write about. In all honesty I find the question infuriating and my answer is always the same … ‘you should write about whatever you want to. Whatever you feel passionate about. Whatever comes to your head’. And I mean it. Because I truly don’t believe there’s a right or wrong when it comes to blogging. Sharing content that inspires you or you feel passionate about, is what will gain the most excitement or traction from others. And there’s an audience for everything, so no matter how niche you may feel your topic of interest is, I have no doubt that there’ll be a whole load of people longing to read it.

#4 BEHIND THE SCENES (AKA: SEO)

Its not all about originality, creativity, and passion, in reality there are a few little behind the scenes tips and tricks that can help make our content ‘perform’ better too. Namely that blighty little acronym, SEO. SEO is what helps people organically discover your content when they’re searching for something on the same topic. There are a few little things that we can do behind the scenes to make our content work that little bit harder, and in turn be that little bit better. You can read all my SEO tips here, but think about your blog title, your URL, keywords, outside links & alt tags.

#5 TECH & DESIGN

Content isn’t just about what you write, it’s also about how others read it too. If we’re looking at ways to make our content better, we should think about the design, layout, font, font size, loading time, structure, links … not forgetting the story telling. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, but making sure that every feature you produce is clear, consistent and easily readable (and findable) is one super simple but important way to make our content great.

#6 PASSION & INTEGRITY

Passion is what makes content and blogs so fabulous, so interesting and so inspiring to read. Getting a little glimpse into someones passions, there loves and their interests is where this whole crazy world grew from, and now more than ever, it’s that passion and enthusiasm that’ll make your content stand out, and that’ll make people want to come and read it. Passion is the ingredient that can turn something from average to incredible. It spurs you on to go the extra mile, to write from the heart, to share with honesty. And that will shine through in the content you produce.

Finally, and most importantly. Integrity. For me it’s what makes content so brilliant, it’s personable, it’s original, it’s full of your passions, it’s your own take on creativity, photography, design & editorial. It’s integrity that makes a blog original, inspiring and interesting. It’s integrity which makes your content stand out from the crowd, and it’s integrity that keeps people coming back for more.

So if you want to make your content better. Simply keep being you.

Et Voila. 5 things that I belive will help us all make our conent better, help us contstnalty evolve and push ourselves to produce exciting, original and inspiring content, jam packed with integrity and passion.

What do you think makes content great? And do you agree with these points to make our own content better?