Web Site Content Creation

Part 3 of 4

To put it bluntly, your content will make your site drown in a sea of mediocrity and sameness, or make other webmasters wish their site were more like yours! There are five keys to successful content:

1. Usefulness
2. Creativity
3. Uniqueness
4. Quality
5. Updates

Let's take a brief look at each of this items.

» Usefulness

Usefulness can be anything that makes it useful (duh!). It may be educational, entertaining, heart-warming, inspirational, factual -- whatever, as long as it engages the visitor in any kind of meaningful way, it is useful. It could be serious commentary, silly jokes, extraordinary photography, well-planned tutorials, exciting prose, or whatever, so long as it's useful in some way.

» Creativity and Uniqueness

Creativity in presentation and layout sets your site apart visually. Writing in your own style or "voice" and using your own words is the uniqueness that sets your site apart from others. We build sites to offer our own voice to the world, not to be a copycat. If all you do is "me-too" then you're not serving yourself or others as well as you could.

Remember this always -- no one can be you as well as you can. You are a singularly unique person in this universe. Be the best you that you can be, rather than being a second-rate copy of someone else!

» Quality

There is no substitute for quality. Without quality your Creativity and Uniqueness will be lost. Creating quality content is largely a matter of not giving up too soon. Too many webmasters create content once and think they're done. I, and almost everyone I know, creates content, then goes back over it several times tweaking it, adding to it, taking things out of it, working it from a first creation to a quality creation. Quality isn't easy, if it was, every site would be of high quality.

» Updates

And finally, adding new material regularly brings visitors back for more. Too often, home pages are nothing but link lists or 3,000 pictures of Fluffy the Cat, and the sites just sit there gathering dust with nothing new added for months at a time. You'd have to be a genius to have visitors keep coming back without you adding more content regularly.

Don't Get Me Wrong

There's nothing wrong with link pages, but for most, they're best when used as an adjunct to your site and not as the primary focus. If your main content is only links you'll have difficulty getting listed in search engines - after all, that's what they provide. They want sites that have more than that. Good links, when you have other content, however, can be considered as an added value to your site. I have bookmarked some sites for the quality of their links.

What About Fluffy?

Isn't she cute? There's nothing wrong with a few pics of Fluffy, just don't overdo it on your home (index) page. Everyone won't be as enamored with the Fluffster as you are so offer the pics on a seperate page.

Ideally, on the pet page, offer thumbnails that link to the bigger pics. Use a graphic editor to resize the images to make true thumbnails. By creating thumbnails folks don't have to wait as long for Fluffy to download. (waiting for Fluffy to download! Sounds like... nevermind) Then they can simply click the link to the pics they do want to see.

So What's Popular?

Sites that enjoy high traffic and keep 'em coming back have one or more of the following elements. The more of these elements you incorporate, the better your chances of web popularity.

» Depth

Create an ever-expanding world. Even if you plan on a specialized site you can find different subjects to tie in with it in an entertaining or useful way. If you were doing a site on Stress in the Work Place you can have a serious page of ways to cope and a humorous look at ways not to deal with it. Be creative. Try to imagine what you'd find if you were the visitor and someone else were making the site. What would David Letterman do with it, or Rush Limbaugh, or Dear Abby, or anyone you admire!

» Originality

Are you a recreational poet? Are you good at drawing? Do you write short stories or tell good jokes? Put it up! Whatever makes you unique and sets you apart from the others is a great place to start. Everyone is good at something. Think about your strengths.

People want to see what is uniquely you. From the beginning of time to all eternity, there is and will always be only one you. Celebrate who you are, for no one can be you better than you can, and you can be no one else better than you can be yourself. That makes you very special indeed. You are better than one-in-a-million. You are better than one-in-a-billion. You are one-in-an-eternity! Think about that. When YOU ARE that special, why would you want to play follow-the-leader?

It can be pretty boring to cruise through a site with absolutely no personality to it because the webmaster is playing monkey-see monkey-do. If you're not being yourself, who will? People don't want to read the same old stuff they can read in a thousand other places that all sound the same. They would much rather read about your unique point of view, providing you're not some psycho idiot who shouldn't be roaming free. You're not some wild, crazy psycho, are you, Mr. Wootlesnortz?

» Serve a Purpose

Serving the needs of others means traffic for you. For me, it means sharing my talent for graphics, teaching, and writing at several sites I own. I manage to sell enough of my products along the way that I earn my living at this. Maybe in time I can sell enough to become filthy, stinking rich, who knows? I wouldn't mind being a little stinky that way!

I try to entertain as I serve a purpose. Sure, some folks think I'm nuts, but that's just a lucky guess. Think about what kind of service you could offer. Put up a help page on a topic you know about. You don't have to be an expert, there are plenty of people who know less. If you get questions you don't know the answer to, find it. Then you have new content and something fresh to offer. There are many ways to serve the internet community, find your own angle and go with it.

» Variety

You can offer as many experiences as you can think of. I have more planned than I have time to implement. Build depth with variety. You needn't do it all at once and create a big project. Work on it one idea at a time and do it up right. Become a mini-expert on the things that interest you. If you work on your interests you're likely to do a good job of it and others will recognize your effort and reward you with return visits, email, links to your site, and purchase your goods if you offer any.

» Friendliness

Think about your favorite sites. Do they have a sterile, officious approach or do they have a bit of personality? The answer for most is the second choice. One of the nicest unsolicited comments I've ever received said..."I really love your site, it feels like you're right there with me." Makes a fella feel good. Doesn't pay the bills but it feels pretty good just the same. The point is, talk to your guests like you talk to your friends and you're on the right track, providing you're not a complete jerk in real life.

If you are a complete jerk in real life, then...

Even business sites can benefit from having a little personality to them. One of the complaints I've noticed about web sites is that they are sterile. No personality, sterile antiseptic writing, and a lack of imagination and creativity all add up to BORING!

Rules of Thumb

• Create your own content. Copying others is not only unimaginative, it could be illegal. Each page published has inherent copyrights whether it says so or not. Fines can go as high as $100,000 plus damages. Original content is the best content...always has been, always will be. There was only one Elvis, but hundreds of Elvis impersonators. Who remembers the impersonator's names?

• Keep download times in mind as you build. Try to keep each page under 40k and 4 screen lengths. I call it the Rule of 4's - mainly because it's my rule so I can call it what I like. That, and it made more sense than calling it pudding.

• Be yourself. There will be plenty of folks who will like you for who you are. This is especially true for personal sites. People visit personal home pages to learn about YOU...your originality, your creativy, your uniqueness. You know you're wonderful, let your light shine!

• Keep working good idea's. If you have a page you're happy with or get compliments about, find a way to expand the theme with related material or simply go for a series of pages with the same topic. That's basically how my original site grew from about 15 pages to over 500 pages before I started splitting up the content into multiple sites.

• Find a way to serve. In many ways the internet is one big, sharing community. Find your niche and shine your light.

• Variety is the spice of life! Expand the web world of you with all the things that interest and amuse your own self. If it's something you're interested in, so too will others be.

The final page of this tutorial deals with making a plan before you start. Without a plan, you'll be making extra work for yourself. I know you're anxious to get started, but it's faster to do it right the first time than to have to redo it all.