There’s this saying that goes around that “content is king“, which I’m sure that we all agree upon, but what does it mean? Why is it that so many people recommend writing high quality, original content and why some blogs don’t really make it big, despite the quality posts they publish? Let’s take a closer look at this matter and find out what it takes to make a king out of your content.

A king without a kingdom

Just like most websites, a blog is defined by many attributes. Among them, the most notable are the content, the design, the usability and its visibility. Excelling in any one of these categories, but ignoring the others will not be sufficient to make your blog stand out.

Think of your content as a king without a kingdom. Who is it going to rule over? How will people find your content if it doesn’t get enough internet and search engine exposure? How will readers navigate through your older posts if you don’t guide them or give them the required tools to find what they are looking for. How do you expect them to react if your blog looks like thousands of other blogs available out there? Why would they expect yours to be different if you don’t take the time to at least make it look different?

It’s highly important that you work on the whole ensemble of things that can improve your blog’s quality, before thinking of making a king out of your content.

Blog design and usability tips

Before making any decision on your blog’s design, keep in mind that a blog is meant to be read, not admired. Starting from here, consider the following:

Use web-friendly fonts in sizes that make them readable on most screen resolutions. Sans serif fonts (Arial, Verdana, Tahoma) are the most readable fonts used online, unlike pure serif fonts (Times New Roman, Georgia), which are more readable on printed materials. A size of 12 pixels/points or more should make them visible on most resolutions.

Go for a fixed website layout instead of a fluid (screen resolution dependent) one. While some readers might prefer a website that stretches to fit the entire amount of available screen space, the majority might have a problem reading extremely long lines of text. Find a resolution (between 900 and 950 pixels should be OK) and stick with it.

If going for a fixed layout width, then center it on the screen. People with bigger screen resolutions will see a lot of unused space around your blog or on the right of it. By splitting this unused, white space into two equal parts, on the left and on the right of your blog, the sensation of too much unused space will be minimized.

Use dark fonts on white or light backgrounds. Studies have confirmed that black on white is much easier to read than white on black, and is more relaxing also, allowing your visitors to read more without feeling tired.

Right hand sidebars are more user-friendly. No matter if you have one sidebar or one large one split into two smaller ones, keeping the sidebars on the right has its advantages. First of all, think about the fact that every browser (few exceptions) has the scroll bar on the right and people do use it a lot. It would the helpful to provide your visitors with more navigation options in the same area. Further more, code-wise, a sidebar positioned on the right, will most likely generate the code after your content’s code, which is a positive thing when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).

Ease your visitor’s path with more/enough navigation and search options. That search form is basically built in every blog template, but how about suggesting people some related or popular posts on your blog? Maybe even a personal favorites list, like I did with the “Best Of” section, here, on Blogsessive?

If content is king, promotion is the court’s jester

Obviously, great content without enough promotion will simply remain great UNREAD content, and we wouldn’t want that. So, what should be done?

Network, network, network. You’ve heard this already, but it’s really important. Make friends; join discussions on blogs, on forums, on social media website. The more friends and loyal readers you gather, the bigger the chances of having your content promoted well.

Find the social media networks that work for you. Don’t simply take someone’s advice that DIGG is the God of social media, or who knows what other website they’ll point you to. Try out more and see which one brings the best results.

Learn and apply at least some basic SEO on your blog. No one says you have to be an expert in search engine optimization. Just learn enough to keep a clean and search engine friendly website. Result will soon start to show in an increasing amount of visits from search engines, with queries relevant to your content. If those visitors will be happy with what they’ve found, chances are that you’ll turn them into future readers or even subscribers.

Start some contests, offer some freebies. Free stuff is always nice and appreciated, but remember to always offer good quality freebies. If you’re going to give away junk you might just get an opposite reaction from your visitors.

The coronation of a king

As I’ve said before, a king without a kingdom cannot exists, so take your time to build your blog from the most basic item that you can work on to improve. Only by having a rock solid foundation you can make a true king out of your content, and YES, content is king!

  Why Content IS King
Why Content IS King and how you can profit from it by Denny Roushia http://www.tru-deal.com If you've been among the Internet Marketing throng for any period of time, you have undoubtedly heard the expression “Content is King” more than once. But what does that mean? Simply put: Not only do the search engines love content, but visitors do too. By providing visitors with useful information and relevant links to other sites, they come back again and again! And that's not the only benefit. What is content? Content, literally is anything you have on your web site. Products, services and information are all considered content. But, in order....

  Content is King, So Who's the Queen?
It's often said that content is King. The more updated new content you have, the more visitors and search engines will visit your website. But there's another aspect in article writing that should be the Queen. Keywords! Keyword article writing is when you make sure to have common/certain keywords in your articles. The article has a better chance of being picked up by major search engines. The more hits your website gets, the higher on the search engines rankings it will be. If you're selling something on your website this could help boost sales because your website is found quicker.....

  Avoid Graphical Overload
When designing a website, it's easy to start loading it up with graphics. While tempting, you have to resist -- otherwise, you'll end up with graphical overload. Why is that a bad thing? Here's why. It Takes Too Long to Download The first reason to cut down on graphics is that the more there are, and the larger they are, the longer it will take each of your pages to download. People are impatient when waiting for pages to download -- you only have around 5 seconds before your visitor hits the Back button. What can you do about this? Apart from using....

  Writing for a Living?
On an information superhighway, a professional writer can be the king of the road. Websites, blogs, newspapers, magazines, and email newsletters all need content. If you have the skills and the contacts, you can earn a very good living, and often with the benefit of keeping your own hours. The biggest challenge, however, is getting the assignments and actually getting published. Start by building a portfolio. This shows samples of your work, and should be able to display the variety of styles. Include a short how-to (which reflects that you can organize information in a way that's useful to the reader),....

  Get More Traffic Using Niche Articles
What is the key to Internet business success? It's simple: Targeted Traffic Clever internet marketers have long used a variety of ways to herd targeted traffic to their web pages, such as: pay-per-click campaigns, email marketing, search engine optimization, and ezine advertising. However, there is a simple, effective method that many marketers have missed -- submitting brief, 400+ word articles, so that they appear all over the internet. Linking Readers Back To Your Website The time and effort you spend on these mini-articles is a shrewd investment. Here are a few of the ways widespread publication of your articles pays off: Every article you....

Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.problogtips.com/is-content-really-the-king/2412/trackback/

Posted by Jaron in the catagory of... General Interest

1 Trackback »