There’s a lot of talk about “quality blog posts”. People say things like:
Create quality content!
The key to success is to have high quality blog posts.
My traffic really started to grow when I published quality content.
But what the hell is quality content? What does that ACTUALLY MEAN?
I believe there are two key aspects to quality content and you can gravitate towards one or the other (or heck, both!).
1) Quality content SOLVES A PROBLEM or provides a solution.
I mentioned this a bit in my post about simple SEO. All of my most popular posts start with “how to”. Here’s the list once again:
- How to Choose a Good Blog Name (96,108 page views)
- How to Add a Drop Down Menu Navigation in Blogger (43,049 page views)
- How to add an Image Slider to Your Blogger Blog (28,387 page views)
These are tutorials or guides or pieces of advice. People Google a question, click on my post, and I provide them with a solution.
One of the big reasons people sit down and read a blog post is to get help.
- People want answers to their questions.
- People want advice on how to succeed / start a business / use a tool / start a blog / {insert anything}.
- People want a complete walkthrough on how to do something.
It doesn’t matter so much what your topic is. All it matters is that you’re providing ANSWERS or helping people DO SOMETHING.
If you answer someone’s question, you’re giving them value (or quality). Period.
2) Quality content is ENTERTAINING.
This is obviously a bit more vague. What is entertaining? How do you define that?
Entertaining means something different for every single person. What makes you laugh may not make me laugh. That’s why this is harder to describe and less clear cut.
I think the most important thing here is to decide how you want to entertain and OWN IT.
- If you want to entertain by being snarky, then be snarky in everything you publish. Make that your thing.
- If you want to entertain by commenting on amusing or scandalous articles, then make that your thing. Make that what your blog is all about.
- If you want to entertain by creating funny comics, then make a shit load of awesome comics. That’s the core of your site.
People will read your posts if they’re funny, amusing, or addicting.
But if you try to be entertaining to everyone, you’ll be entertaining to no one.
Just remember that you cannot and should not try to cater to EVERYONE. Be entertaining to ONE TYPE OF PERSON—the type of person who loves snark, or the type of person who loves gossip, or the type of person who loves funny artwork.
This is where having a niche can come in handy. The niche doesn’t necessarily have to be a topic, but it can be a type of person—like someone who loves a snarky personality.
Quality content IS NOT…
- A fluff piece that ultimately says nothing. (Seriously, how many posts do you read that make you think, “What was the point of this?”)
- Unoriginal crap that’s copy and pasted across 20 other blogs. *cough* spotlights / blitzes / promo posts *cough* Why will your post be special or get a lot of traffic if I can find the same thing on 20 other sites?
- A filler post that you rushed to get out there just for the sake of having a post that day. People can smell “filler” from a mile away.
- An update on your life (unless you have a super interesting life or put an entertaining spin on it). I’m not saying you shouldn’t publish life posts/updates (I do them sometimes), I’m just saying you shouldn’t expect these to get a lot of traffic, shares, or SEO juice.
Honestly, a quality post to me is a post I am interested in. Be it a book blitz, giveaway, discussion post, or review. I can easily love them all. I just have to be interested in the book, or what the blogger talks about. Quality posts will be different for everyone I think. We all have different needs for what we are reading.
I do like reading posts about other people’s life, but I do agree that it’s not going to be as popular as a post that’s entertaining or helping other people. It’s possible the mash the two up, though, so that’s great (like, explaining how you have this problem in your life and telling other people about it).
I feel exactly the same as you do! Quality in itself is subjective, but if it helps people or is entertaining, then that’s what matters to me. I check out Cover Snark every week, not because it’s the best quality post out there, but because it entertains, and yet I check out most Nectar Collective posts because they help me a ton! It’s all about putting your all into something for me 🙂
I’m like Jennifer… whatever is interesting to me is a quality post. I’m sure most of my posts aren’t what you would call “quality”, but if you’re interested in reading a review of a specific book that you’re looking to buy… then suddenly that post becomes quality to that specific person. It’s all relative I guess.
Ugh this is SO good! The phrase “quality content” has been bandied around so much recently that it’s kind of started to lose all meaning. Whenever I’m writing a post I always ask myself what the end goal is – what do I want my readers to take away from it? What will they learn? How will I show that concisely and clearly? Thanks for this!
I love that you ask yourself those questions Lizzie! That’s such a great idea. Every post should have a purpose or some kind of outcome. People shouldn’t walk away with a “Cool story, bro” type feeling.
I think a quality post is a good blend of strong ideas/opinions, and a personal voice.
I think it’s very easy to feel distant or cold, but most of the posts I love have felt very personal and opinionated.
Often I search for reviews of stories I’ve already read or seen, to compare the author’s views with my own.
Hey Ashley ☺ Thank you for explaining this. Quality post sounds so vague. How do you define or compare which post is better? Sometimes these terms seriously intimidate newbie bloggers.