In this week’s episode of the Extra Paycheck Podcast we’re talking about creating high quality content for your online business.
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If you’ve been following my blog or podcast you certainly heard me mention the importance of high quality content. In fact, many online marketer will tell you that you must create great content for your online business. But what exactly is high-quality content? More importantly, how do you create it?
This podcast episode is all about content creation. More precisely, it’s about written-content.
Where to get content?
There are just two (2) ways to get content for your blog. You either pay someone to do it for you or you do it yourself. Both options could be great.
Paying someone for content creation will certainly free up a lot of time for you. However, this isn’t cheap. A good article will cost you anywhere from $20 to $100 (or even more). This adds up, especially if you’re a beginner online marketer. Besides spending a lot of money you’ll need to go through several writers until you find those who actually do good work. But how do you know if they’re producing good content when you don’t know what high quality content is?
This is one of the main reason I recommend you do the work. You need to “get your hands dirty” in order to fully understand what kind of content you need and what is actually good. Besides, you’ll save a lot of money.
How To Become A Good Writer?
The simple answer is: practice. When I discovered the world of online marketing in late 2007 I hated writing. I was so bad at it that I spent 8 hours on creating a 400 word article without any substance. Now promise that you won’t make fun of me. Deal? Now go and see this horrendous article I wrote in 2008. It’s bad.
Update: I started removing the old “useless” articles that do not bring any value to the visitor.
But I kept writing. I wrote for several blog in different niches. With time my content became more pleasant to read. It became more detailed and I started developing my own writing style. It’s simple yet detailed. Sure I still mess up sentence structure from time to time and I make loads of typos but we all make mistakes. If I waited until I become a perfect writer I would never launch a blog. Practice make perfection. Write every single day (for your blog or even personal diary) and you will get better with time. Not being a native English speaker is a bad excuse. English is certainly not my first language and I live in a plce where most people speak French. Once again, write consistently and you’ll get better.
Don’t try to fake your voice. Be authentic. If your conversations are casual and you like swearing then don’t be scared of including a casual cuss word in your content. Just don’t overdo it. I think swear words have their place and time. If you have a huge sense of humor then include it in your content. If you’re a small blog owner then don’t write as you’re the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation. Be yourself and your readers will appreciate it.
How to Create High Quality Content
When it comes to the actual content – it’s usually about Search Engine Optimization. Good content ranks well which means we can use the search engines to find out what is considered as high quality content. In this episode I talk about a specific keyword phrase that I searched in Google and looked through the top 5 results.
The articles were from high authority websites; TomsGuide, TechRadar, cNet, ConsumerReport and Trusted Reviews. TomsGuide article (ranked #1) had 3,000 words. The other 4 articles had 2,500-2,600 words. We shouldn’t look at it as a hard rule but we can certainly speculate that in this niche or for this specific keyword phrase we should be writing an article of at least 2,500 words. Your 400-word thought just wouldn’t cut it.
If you want to create a high quality article for your keyword phrase then you should search that phrase in Google. Then you open the top 10 results and actually read through these articles. At this point you’ll need to figure out how you can write an article that’s even better than the top 10. It will not be easy but you don’t really have a choice. If you put out a mediocre piece of content, people will keep on reading the top results and not yours.
Here is a tip for you. Many of these articles will have a comment section. Pay attention to these comments. See what people are asking and saying. If several readers keep asking about the same thing then make sure to cover that within your article. Look at the information that people need and give it to them. Produce a more detailed article and you’ll have a chance of ranking well. Besides, when people find your content and actually like it, they will be coming back for more.
I give out quite a few more details in the episode so scroll up and press the Play button to hear the full episode.
Formatting Tips
Writing a good piece of content is your main goal. However you also need to properly format it. Don’t just post one big chunk of text. Break it up in smaller paragraphs. Make sub-headings and titles. Use images and videos.
Do NOT change the background colors and do not use funky fonts. Remember that your site needs to be easy on the eyes. Your content is the most important thing here, no one wants to see cute kittens in the background. No one wants to spend 5 minutes trying to figure out what that cursive sub-heading says. Keep it clean and simple.
Last but not least, outsmart the quitters. Building a successful blog takes time. I have seen thousands of people quit after a few months. This is because many people jump into blogging (or online business) expecting to make millions in a very short time. If you stick around and put in the effort long enough, it will pay off. Just remember that success doesn’t happen overnight. Some of the very successful blogs put out content consistently and didn’t make a single penny for the first 6-12 even 18 months but then it snowballed. Be consistent, be patient and you will get your desired results.
Resources:
Jaaxy (aff link) – for your keyword research needs
Unsplash – copyright free images
Deposit Photos (aff link) – buy your images
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If you do have any comments or question, please do use the comment form below! I will answer every single one 
– Alex
