The World-Wide Web and Its Content Trap
We all know that the Internet is has a voracious appetite for content. Think of it: Billions of websites throughout the world, serving up perhaps trillions of web pages of information. “More, more, more” it screams as it swallows all the information it can get, and it never ends.
And there is a trap there as — and Internet marketers know this reality well — websites are constantly pushing out the latest “shiny new thing.”
And therein lies the trap – because that shiny new toy-version of website information is not always going to be effective content (effectiveness defined in terms of good targeted traffic and high user engagement rates). Think, for example, of all of the blog sites, busy sharing the latest trends, news and true stories — yet they get no notice at all from anyone. Sometimes, chasing after the brass ring only gets you out of breath, with nothing to show for your efforts.
What REALLY Makes Content Effective?
It might surprise you to know that if you abandon the shiny new toy-version of website content, you stand a much higher chance of putting something out there that will be effective in reaching people.
This content is not shiny or new, necessarily — but it is relevant. And the best among the bunch seems to stay relevant, day in and day out, year in and year out. We usually refer to this content as “evergreen content.” There is a huge link between the “evergreen” relevancy and its overall effectiveness in reaching the audience you need to reach, and getting the results you need to get.
Content That is Not (Usually) Very Long-Lasting In Impact
If you are trying to produce site content that will hold its value (relevancy) for the long haul, there some types of content you will want to avoid are:
- Writing that is so anchored to technical data, statistics or current research that it will go out-of-date just as soon as new facts are discovered or the situation changes.
- Anything having to do with any aspect of pop culture (movie and TV stars, celebrity gossip, fashions).
- Current events, trends, or trending Internet search queries.
Like the flower, this category of content will bloom and have its day but will quickly fade in importance, needing to be replaced with more recent items to satisfy that ravenous WWW beast.
That’s why sites filled with this type of content are always churning out new pages, because pages which were formerly of high interest are garnering no interest at all now.
And since you know that producing content has a cost (even if it’s the cost of your own time) you have to ask if all the expense and effort is worth it, as the flower will quickly fade and die.
What’s Your QTI Quotient?
The Big-3 for evergreen article content types comes under the acronym “QTI” —
Q – Questions: You can develop content focused on answering commonly-asked questions by customers or patrons in your industry or area of interest. What are the big questions – the ones people are always trying to get answers for? Your content will provide detailed answers.
T – Tips: If you can show someone in your content (videos can work well for this) or make use of a diagram, chart or step-by-step instructions of how to do something, or tips and tricks, hacks, cheats and workarounds, that content will usually hold its value for a long time.
I – Ideas: Think about people new to your field, industry or business type. What types of ideas or concepts could you clarify or explain? For example, if you are a sales outlet for heat pump manufacturers, you could provide an easy-to-understand schematic of how heat pumps are set up, how they function, price and feature comparisons (this section of content may need a bit of refreshing from time-to-time). This content could become known as a good resource, and ranked accordingly by the search engines.
Content with a high QTI quotient is more strongly evergreen and very relevant and will be a strong performer for you year-round.
For Business Website Success, Why Not Try Teaching Your Site Visitors?
Some of the most successful websites around prominently feature in-depth guides to subject-matter in their industry — why not emulate the practice? It will, of course, demand a special effort and take time (and perhaps some extra finances) to put this content together, but once the public knows it is out there, they will flock to your site to get it – in the form of:
- Serial tutorials, each installment covering the next major topic in that subject.
- Studies based on original research.
- Had an unsuccessful experience in your business or industry? Why not do a post-mortem analysis and pinpoint where the failure(s) occurred.
- Folks are always interested in reading lists or lists of websites that need to be regularly consulted.
- Goal-oriented: Whether it’s avoiding pitfalls when purchasing a used car, or the best configuration for a home entertainment system, or how to lay bricks, information that helps people to do something or reach a specific goal is always in demand. Make it accurate, concise and illustrated.
- Process Checklists: If you are dealing with a topic that requires a lot of steps and sub-steps to get to the goal, you can help people quite a bit by providing a detailed checklist of all those steps. If it can accompany a content piece exploring each step in more detail, even better!
Getting The Word Out
Once you have this great content that is relevant for the long-term out there, you need to let everyone know about it — here are just a few ideas:
If you use separate landing pages or maintain a blog site, you can put a prominent link on each page to go to the area where your manual or tutorial is found.
Don’t forget to get the word out on various social channels that you have access to, as well as email (and print!) newsletters.
See if you can get some paid ad space on authority industry and portal sites, as well as the venerable AdSense option.
Finally, Think About This…
Suppose you had the option of posting content to your site more frequently — or in more depth. Which would you choose? Here at Articlez.com, we would choose to post content that had greater depth, content that is more relevant, than more frequent content posting of material which was only of limited and passing interest and value.
Try setting this goal: This next year, try to get one content piece developed that is in-depth and everlastingly relevant, each month. Get it out there and then promote the heck out of it by every means that you have available to you. By this time next year, you will have 12 content items functioning as hubs for good traffic, and this will be content that will not easily, nor quickly, go out-of-date.
And you’ll stand out from all those shiny new toy articles and web pages out there.
