Writing this article was a strong fight between my own subjectivity and my wish of being impartially so I could write a quality post. I could call myself a content writer and a blogger, but at the same time I want to become a good logo designer as well. It really does not matter what I am and what I want to do, it matters that this post is written by a person who has little acknowledgement both about design and writing. Design and content are very important…which one is the most important no one can tell, usually designers say that the design matters most, while the writers say the content does.

This post is about how to realize a good content; if the readers express their demands to read a post about good design, it will be written next week.

Here you will find some tips to write quality content; hope you enjoy them and if you have other suggestions please put them in a comment.

1. Do not copy, try to be original

First of all, plagiarism isn’t tolerated…it makes me feel angry. Plagiarism is the same as robbery; somebody steals the work of another one who invests a lot of time and resources into his work. It’s totally wrong to believe that nobody could find out that your content is copied or “inspired” from another source; in a “good” day somebody will notice you are a fake. Anyway, if you pretend about yourself that you are the adept of high quality, a copied or a bad content is a shame. It is only a matter of time for the spiders of Google to find your content is only a duplicate and the consequences could be very unpleasant for you.

On the other hand, we shouldn’t be extremists: from my point of view there is nothing wrong to have inserted small paragraph/paragraphs from an interview or a press declaration. As long as a post or content has a link to the source or the quotation sign, it doesn’t seem a problem to me. A plus is to have an original content: a good design attracts more users, but quality content maintains them. The best solution to sustain a good traffic is to have nice texts, trying always to be innovative.

All people are totally bored to read stereotypes like: “We are the best”, “Select our team”, “You find the perfect solution” and so on. Making something original that pops out could be a solution to have more readers or clients depending on the specificity of the website. I always try, when I’m creating something to answer the following questions: “Which are the features that make it different from others?” or “Why is this better than other similar ones?” Nowadays, all websites have a design that makes them very eyeful… a good content is still rarely seen.

To conclude, an original content is not an easy task, but it could be the key element in the overall structure of a page.

2. The slogan– the logo of the content

I love logos and I strongly believe that a super quality one could make the difference between websites, companies, products and so on. Even if it is not so clearly defined a motto is for content what a logo is for design.

A slogan is a group of words that should attract people. I know that I am not modest, but for example I published some weeks ago a case-study about Internet & hackers, I believe this is interesting enough; what was decisive in increasing the traffic was the title- “Make web, not war”. The most difficult problems in creating a good slogan are: playing with words in such a way that the result comes out both interesting and hilarious at the same time, and placing the slogan in the content in an eye catching fashion.

The problem of finding the right combination- it all depends on your own creativity; where to insert the slogan is a matter of context. This is a big trouble- “to be or not to be”, or how a website of a beekeeper said in a slogan- “To bee or not to bee”.

3. Write for readers, not what you like

This problem can be easily solved when you are experienced content writers which in the majority of cases are lovers of complex phrase constructions, word plays and often thong breakers. Unfortunately for the writer, it could happen that his preferences could differ from the expectations of the readers. In these circumstances even if the writer doesn’t want, the content should be written for readers. As a consequence of this fact the entire text needs a special structure. Keep in mind, the usual readers don’t read, just scan.

A plain text is suicide- it is much more boring for anyone to read a long plain text. Some solutions to combat the boredom of plain text are:

-to organize the text in small paragraphs;

-the ideas should be presented concise and clearly;

-short sentences contain more information than the long ones;

-the title should represent the core idea of the post/content.

4. Not short or long, just to the point

The length of a text is very important. Consider it as a personal piece of advice: do not write the content to have a specific length- write it only to present everything you need to make the potential readers understand your ideas. As a final indication: quality content is written to present good information, not to demonstrate the art of writing of the author.

5. SEO is quite important, but not everything

SEO is based in a decisive matter on the content. It’s a frequent requirement to have a specific density of keywords in your texts. Here is a good opportunity to show that you are talented: for example if the client requires having a specific density of the words: “SEO”, “design”, “content” you shouldn’t exaggerate and put the words only to accomplish the task.

A text that realizes the requirements and that didn’t use the words in an artificial manner passes an important criterion. Surely this fact is very important- a good SEO means more readers, more readers mean promo, good promo means many expensive projects. Quite interesting, isn’t it?

I love Google because if there is a huge density of keywords in the text of website it is considered as being spammed by them (but not only by them) and the website could be banned for this unfair situation.

6. Pay attention to the titles and subtitles

This fact is a consequence of all the above. In most cases a usual reader only scans through page and it happens often to read only the title and sometimes subtitles…it is obvious that if we want to attract more traffic there is a point to start a complete strategy and fight for it. It is highly recommended to make these clear enough to distinguish from the rest of the content; it is simpler for the people who navigate to read it!

A good idea is to put these subtitles as a super brief of the text, it makes the task of the reader (who searches for information) easily and that is quite important. To have relevant subtitles is helping you a lot in your strategy of SEO; the spiders and crawlers of Google gave a strong importance to the subtitles and the accordance with the content itself.

Writing a good content is a very difficult task even if it seems to be an easy task, but almost all people forget that it differs from writing a story or a book….which book needs SEO (which is a perpetual fight between specialists to have a higher rank)?

Please let me know your opinion about the features of the content and its importance in the overall value of a webpage.