Home » Blog » What is Content?

What is Content?

February 10
by: Admin Ecreativeworks

Content, Content Marketing, industrial website copywriting, SEO friendly content

Time to Read: 2m 10s

Are you sick of reading thinkpieces about content? Because I sure am. Think about that for a second: I'm a writer and I'm sick of reading blog posts with titles like this: "Content is KING!" "Ten Reasons Why Content is NOT King" "If a Tree Falls in the Woods and Nobody is Around to Hear it, Does it Still Generate Content for Your Site?" (Ok, I didn't actually read a post with that last title, but trust me, that is where the blogosphere is headed.)

Look, people, it's time to stop this endless debate over the value of content when we seem to only have the vaguest notion of what content is, exactly. So for now, we're going to chuck the concept of content entirely -- entirely! -- and get back to basics. The number one rule you should adhere to is this: put good stuff* on your site. Relevant stuff. If your stuff is not good or relevant, people will ignore you. Now that you're committed to only putting good and relevant stuff on your site, let's get specific about what kind of stuff you should focus on.

Copy

Your site probably has some words on it. Those words describe what your business does and how your business does it. But are these words interesting to read? Will users find them helpful? Are they spelled correctly? It's not enough just to have words on your site. Your words need to be arranged in a way that is enticing, informative, and syntactically correct. Also, using headers to break up the copy can make it easier to read, and help users find what they are looking for. Check out the following screenshots to see the difference between words and well-organized words. [caption id="attachment_3255" align="aligncenter" width="300"]

BEFORE. This is a page with words on it.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3256" align="aligncenter" width="300"]

AFTER. This is a page with well-organized copy, written by Ecreative copywriters (aka me).[/caption] Look at the AFTER screenshot. You can tell, at a glance, exactly what this website has to offer. This is the difference between "stuff" and "good stuff."

Images

Users are far more likely to click on a link if there's an image next to it, simply because the image draws the eye and captures the user's attention. High quality images (a few, not too many -- you don't want to make your page too slow to load) can improve your click-through rate. Of course, the images should be relevant, optimized, and not grainy or tiny.

Videos

If you have enough in your budget to make a few quality videos, do it. Videos are some of the very best stuff you can put on your site. Use them to tell the story of your company, for client testimonials and product demonstrations.

Blogs

Blogging is a great way to generate additional stuff that works in tandem with your copy. Your webpage copy will be pretty static -- you'll want to update it every few months or so, but you probably won't change it every day (nor should you). But if you integrate a blog into your site, you can update it monthly, daily, weekly, hourly, whatever -- and that way, your site will constantly have new stuff to offer, that will keep users coming back for more.

In sum...

That's it, really. Copy, images, videos, blogs -- focus on creating those and ensuring that they are of high quality. If you do that, you will get much farther than you will if you stay on the content-is-king/no-it's-not Tilt-a-Whirl. *You may have noticed that I simply substituted the word "stuff" for "content". It's not a huge change, but doesn't it make more sense once you toss out the over-used, over-hyped industry buzzword?