SEO Basics - Part Two - Creating Content

by Darren McLaughlin

Creating content is your task if you decide to become a web publisher. You’ll need to constantly produce up to the minute accurate content that will be attractive to today’s modern web surfer. The task is both complex and simple, paradoxically. It doesn’t take genius to create compelling content, but if you underestimate the job and don’t produce high quality content, you’re probably dead in the water. Web surfers have become accustomed to abundant and free high quality content.

Content creation can be handled in several ways.

1. You can do it yourself
2. You can outsource the job to others
3. You can get others to do it in exchange for something you can do

Any of these methods is valid, and each has a distinct set of advantages and disadvantages. If you do it yourself, you can be assured that the job is done well. If you have the time, it’s probably best for you to create the primary content on your website, that is, if you can communicate well with the written word.

If you’re not writer, then you’ll want to get someone else to do the job. That much is self explanatory, but the phrase “Your Mileage Might Vary” comes to mind with many of the people who will claim to create content for a living. You have to be realistic about pricing. You might decide to go with a cheap content vendor, but in the end, you’ll want to make sure that the content is both researched and not stolen.

If you don’t want to write the content yourself, and you don’t want to hire others, then you’ll have to get content created by others. You can try cobbling together a website with content you find laying around the internet, but it’s never a good idea. Most free to reprint articles have been re-published many times and won’t do your website much good. Instead, try and create a community around an idea. If the idea is inspiring to people, you can get others to contribute to the website. But let’s face it, people won’t contribute unless they get something out of it. If you can’t do the content, at least make sure you create the tools that will excite others to work for free.

We’ll continue our in depth look into content in our next article in this series.

Continued from: SEO Basics - Close Look at Content - Part One. Continued in SEO Basics - Part Three - Content Strategies

Tags: Content Creation, SEO Basics