Lately, I have been thinking about what makes a post so great and appealing to make someone want to actually read it. We have talked about writing more interesting headlines, and keeping a consistent post frequency, but I feel like we have missed the point a little bit when we talk about writing great articles.
In brief, I would say a great post teaches you something. It consists of information that has ha a lot of thought put into it, and is written so when people read it — they understand what’s being talked about. I think you would agree that those are pretty important characteristics of any good post.
With the blogosphere growing so rapidly and niches becoming more bloated, I couldn’t help but notice trends in how content is being produced. Trends that aren’t necessarily good, and they are also what I see a lot on newer blogs. But, shockingly enough — blogs with age may even be turning for the worst as well. These are just observations.
Keeping Value Intact
The point I want to get across to you in this post is to keep your content valuable. I feel like many bloggers, even myself, at one point or another have failed to produce content that has real value to it. Instead, it is more passive information rather than something that teaches.
Let me go over a few examples of what I mean.
Get Hits Quick With List Posts
We all know list posts as something many people go crazy for. List posts explode all over social media and bring in thousands of hits if you make your list long enough.
There is no doubt in my mind that posts like 100 Lists to become a better blogger or 169 ways to market your blog can’t bring in loads of traffic. Those two posts have been published on Blogussion and have had thousands of hits.
Sure, the traffic is great. But being the optimist I am, I had to go through those posts and wonder if we had published these posts to teach people or to bring in traffic. I have found that people learned some things from these posts, but unfortunately I see the main purpose of these posts is to bring in a lot of traffic, which wasn’t my goal when I started this blog.
Unfortunately this has been the case in many other blogs out there. We sometimes sacrifice the value in our posts to bring in some quick hits to our blog. List posts are the prime example of this.
Now, I’m not saying all list posts are bad and lack quality and value. I just think there are a lot of blogs, even famous ones with thousands of readers who still post list posts with no real value. I promise to you now that you will never see another list post on Blogussion that doesn’t teach, or have some kind of value to it.
Mindless Reiterations over Logical Breakdowns
A trend I see a lot on many new blogs is that the content consists of a lot regurgitated ideas that are talked about over and over again rather than unique thoughts. It’s not bad to have a few of these types of posts, but nowadays if you want any hopes of competing with top blogs in your niche one day — you have to start doing some out of the box thinking.
The Larger the Audience, the Better the Content?
Just because a blog has thousands of RSS readers and makes money doesn’t mean that they offer the best content in the niche. Usually when we see a blog with a huge following, we naturally assume that the blog is full of great resources and top-notch information. We find this to be true many times, but that should not be your first instinct when you see this type of blog.
As crazy as that may sound, hear me out.
When you think about it from a second perspective, do you think that just because a blog only has, say, 500 RSS readers that they’re content isn’t as good as a blogger with thousands of RSS readers?
Generally when the audience gets larger, you would think to become more laid back with your blog right? Well, for those of us who don’t have thousands of dedicated readers, we are still working our asses off to deliver the best content possible all of the time.
Of course I’m not saying that just because a blog is popular that they’re content isn’t useful. I just feel like there are people out there who blog their hearts out to a smaller audience who don’t always get the recognition they should. And the content they write is usually very well researched and structured.
So, would you rather read a blog with fewer readers but more detailed content, or a blog with thousands of readers and content that isn’t always as good as it should be?
The easiest way to test your content for value
Go through some of the posts on your blog and read through the comments that others have posted. What do you see? Here is how you can grade your content using the lettering system we do in High School:
- A+: There are a lot of discussions going on between your readers, and the discussions involve answering each others questions, stating facts that go along with your post. Not everyone agrees, and not everyone disagrees. Little to no “Great post!” type comments.
- B: There are a lot of discussions going on between your readers, and nearly everyone agrees with what you had to say with a few different opinions. Little to no “Great post!” type comments.
- C: There is some discussion, but most people have written only one or two sentences that usually support your ideas without any opposing opinions.
- D: Very few people go out of their way to write more than just “great post!”
- F: Few comments, if any. All among the lines of “great post!”
Now, I don’t think anyone should grade themselves below “C.” It is actually harder than it sounds to be worse than that.
If your blog is new, don’t let that stop you from grading. Sure, you may have less comments but use whatever comments you do have and grade it all at once.
What are your thoughts?
I think this is a pretty interesting topic and I had a lot of fun coming up with the ideas here (that’s another thing towards writing a great post — have fun).
But this is a very serious issue I think, so I would love to have some debates within the comments and hear some opinions!
60 Discussions
Hi Alex,
To be honest, I think that “quality content” is pretty much in the eye of the beholder … in other words, it will vary based on the target audience. Some people are looking for those list posts, and “how to ..”s that they’ve already read hundreds of times in one form or another.
I do think there is also a pretty good market out there for bloggers who are Authentic.
Say what you think … people will either like it, or they won’t
But I will say one thing, it’s usually not hard to spot when someone is making an effort to “try” to write “quality” content … they are normally the least unique and authentic blogs to visit.
Just my opinion though.
Todd´s last blog ..Don’t Be An INVISIBLE Reader
I agree, it does matter a lot what the reader walks away with after going through the article that could determine the quality of it.
Thanks for sharing your opinions Todd!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Thanks for the great post, Alex
I like a value -packed post that not only teaches me something, but makes me feel the blogger has gone out of his/her way to deliver quality. Post frequency is one thing but what about consistency in value and quality.. always meeting or exceeding the standards that we set for ourselves, as bloggers?
Too often, the opposite happens; we start taking out readers for granted and feel they can forgive a lousy, rushed post once in a while.
You’re right about the comments. The blogs I visit most are the ones where there are active discussions in the comments section and they do get an A+ in my opinion. Takes a lot to start a discussion and keep it going.
David Walker´s last blog ..Live Webinar – Tuesday 1 December 5pm EST
Glad you like it Dave! There was a lot of thought put into the topic, glad it made you think as well.
That’s a good question to ask, and I think I even dedicated a whole post about meeting your post frequency with value, or just anything to get by.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Great post
lol Really though you make some good points. I would love to be able to post A+ content but according to your rating system I need readers to have great content. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that. Simply because I’m sure there are many great blogs out there that just fail to be heard on a wider scale for whatever reason. Keep up the good work 
Don’t let the fact that you’re a new blogger or that you have no readers to say whether or not you have bad content. If the content is good, and you know how to market – you can get readers.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Hey Alex,
Awesome post dude. I love your passion for delivelring quality and you never fail my expectations.
According to the index, my blog rates B. There is not a lot of discussion going around but I really’d like to have a discussion. (Why not write a post on that one?)
Pleople agree and leave comment with supporting facts.
King Sidharth @ Meditation Rocks´s last blog ..How to Meditate in A Noisy Environment or At A Noisy Place
Thanks for stopping by! With more time and effort, you’ll be at a solid A for sure.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I think the C score can still be a reasonable grade for your content. Far better than seeing your post with all “Great post!” comments. With regards to list post, I think you’re right. Most blog owners tend to provide lots of list posts without further elaborating or explaining each item within the list. The post ends up to be useless to the readers.
Jack Courtney´s last blog ..Capstar Review
A C is a good grade, I agree with you Jack.
Sometimes it’s not just the writers fault, but the person who doesn’t have anything useful to contribute, just wants a free link by posting a useless comment.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Intelligent post, yes today, having valuable content is a critical factor in enabling a website to meet its main objectives.
Web Hosting UK´s last blog ..Web Address – Non-Latin Domain Names Approved
Definitely, to be more competitive you need to keep up with everything on your blog, especially the quality of content!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
It has been an interesting article. But, I can see that most of the post coming today are just tweaking some old content of others..
Senthil Ramesh´s last blog ..Interview with Simon from Teenius
Some people choose to do that, and it just means that they will be less likely to succeed with their own blog.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Awesome post, You hear all the big pro bloggers always say to write good content, and I agree with you all all points.
Great content has to provide value, if the reader walks away after reading your post, and has learned something, then that was quality content.
But what makes a post great to one reader, will be crap to another. Since you will get readers at all levels of learning. I wrote a post that was pretty damn good, was RT’d 38 times, and most part people liked it, but a few took it as basic newbie information, so to them there was no benefit.
As far as RSS subs, yes it’s great to have 5,000 subs, but does that matter? I see many blogs, top blogs with 50,000 or more RSS Subs, yet their posts on a good day get 50-100 comments, 30-50 RT’s.
Thats alot, but not when you have 50,000 subs that supposedly want to read your info, yet you can only get 50 comments? So does RSS subs make your blog succeed?
On the other hand, you have a affiliate blogger thats awesome, makes a very nice full time income, and has maybe 300 RSS subs.. so who is more successful? who is writing the best content?
I agree John, you kind of have to keep a balance within your content. Some information will be more common sense to others while for different people – it will be like a treasure.
It sucks that many people judge a blog by their number of RSS readers, but it’s really their loss as they may miss on some great content! Like I said, those of us who are still trying to build a blog often have better content than an already established because we are still trying to get our blog off the ground.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
If your readers can get something out of your content then it must be quality content. If your readers do not get anything out of it then obviously it isn’t quality content. It is really as simple as that. You can usually tell by how many subscribers you have if you are having quality content. People will stick around and read your postings every day they get something out of it.
Flawless logic Anna, couldn’t have said it better myself!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I call it “recycled pap” and I refuse to write it. Or at least more than once. I have 2 posts on “Blogging mistakes” in my queue… since May. I may just delete them. 90% of what I have to say in those articles has already been said. Hundreds of times.
Over the last week I’ve started implementing some real change on Website In A Weekend, mostly in my mindset, but it will start to appear over time.
1. I don’t care about traffic. I care about conversion. As it turns out, more traffic coming in from commenting and social efforts over the last two months has not increased my newsletter subscription rate. Thus, I scaled back, and my traffic shows it.
2. High quality content takes time to write, and it takes time to read. If this means NOT posting everyday, that’s how it is.
Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend´s last blog ..Your Ability to Write Is Your Ticket To Entry (not your ticket to gettin’ some)
I’m with you Dave, I am all for discussion over traffic and I think that the last few posts here have done both jobs, but have been more successful in creating discussion. Traffic is nice, but really is meaningless unless those who are on your blog care about your content.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Too funny… I’m coming in off of a retweet “from the archives.”
I need to spend a bit more time over here. Been some changes as I understand, people coming and going.
When are you going to get serious about monetizing? And where’s your autoresponder? I should be getting regular emails from you.
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Carlos Velez Prewriting Throwdown: Blog posts by the pound
Great post!
No seriously though…I think you raise some good points, although I think a list post is a great way to bring in some quick hits it should not be the sole form of content.
Ms. Freeman´s last blog ..Do You Have Permission To Use That Photo?
Take Smashing Magazine for example – a huge blog. But a lot of their posts are just these list posts that don’t always have any real value to them. For some reason, people go crazy for them and share it like crazy. Great, you have traffic, but it probably won’t stick.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Alex, you hit the nail on the head.
“Adding Value” is the key point to any conversation. Posts without “Real Value” are often unremarkable and just because there is a large audience reading it doesn’t make this point any less true.
Lists are great for getting attention, but you have to have some meat on your site as well.
Nick´s last blog ..2010 The Year: the “Affiliate Extractor Model” Died
I thought I was only person thinking that about Smashing. They don’t allow any linking whatsoever from comments. Typically, a large number of their comments are “Great post!” Waste of time.
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Saturday Morning Surfing: Programming Is “Actionary” Blogging Is “Reactionary”
It’s tough to have every post be a “killer” article. My great posts will usually get the A-B comments but I expect some C comments on certain posts.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com´s last blog ..Google Wave will change how we all communicate
It is hard, but if you really are serious and work at coming up with “killer” posts, it could get easier as you go along. The more insightful your content, the higher quality it is, no questions asked.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Content will always and I mean always be a importent part of blogging. Without quality content you will not gain any readers.
I’ve also seen a trend, the more readers a blog gets, the more laid back the blogger gets. You start to provide bad quality articles and almost never post on your blog. But you need to realize that, although it took a long time and effort to gain 1000′s of readers, it’s just as easy to lose all of those readers just mby making 1 big mistake.
So think carefully what to do as you have lots of options open.
Teen Blogger´s last blog ..Why Do We Bloggers Blog?
Honestly, without content what is a blog? :p
I like to think we are pretty laid back here and don’t really “follow the crowd,” but I know that when it comes to writing content that it’s time to be serious.
I love what you said about losing your readership, it’s so true! It’s all about working hard consistently, not working hard at first, then when you have something going to stop.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I personally think that the “Quality Content” argument is bogus. Lets face it, you either add value or you don’t. You contribute to the conversation or you just echo what everyone else says.
Want to get 1000s of readers overnight? Do something everyone else isn’t.
Ps. Losing RSS readers is harder than you think
Nick´s last blog ..2010 The Year: the “Affiliate Extractor Model” Died
Quality content is becoming more and more a thing of the past because bloggers just keep recycling and rewriting material from other, already written posts. It’s hard to find a good, unique and quality blog post these days.
Gordon´s last blog ..Hashtag Heaven – Getting Started On Twitter
I don’t mind recycling MY own posts every once in a while, but you will never see me taking someone else’ idea. I do agree that it’s tough to find some amazing content now, but there are a few people who set their sights high and do these things.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I think the comment really depend on our traffic/readers (quality of traffic). You may have the top quality content of telecommunication in your blog, but if the reader do not understand or do no interested in telecommunication, the comment will be bad for sure.
So, the grade will depend on what kind a readers we have and it make that the grade matcher if use to measure how good we choose the topic base on our readers/traffic.
Dana @ Online Knowledge´s last blog ..Big No Thanks in Thanks Giving
The quality of traffic is definitely a factor, but I don’t think that just because a blog has low traffic doesn’t mean that the post will flop comments wise.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Honestly if you’re not writing “quality” content, why are you writing anything at all? Re-hashed dribble is boring to write and boring to read. I find it amazing that people are always talking about writing “killer” content. Well DUH! Nobody’s going to say “I’m going to write absolute shit on my blog today. I’ll focus on quality tomorrow.”
I have to disagree with people who say that quality is determined by the reader. The definition of quality is being of good worth, well made, fit for purpose. Interest and engagement is in the hands of the reader, but everyone can be judged by quality.
I see no reason why link bait can’t be quality. Share quality resources, give some quality opinions, etc.
Great post!
Indeed, it’s like everyone wants to get out there and make money blogging. Most of them don’t even know anything about writing and what lies at the heart of blogging -blogging from heart.
And yes link bait is an awesome thing for content. Why not? I loved 169 ways to promote and have learned a lot from it. Well, it is difficult to remember all 169 but if I really want to learn, I will go back again.
King Sidharth´s last blog ..Prove Thyself
I find a lot of list posts to be more aimed at getting traffic rather than being anything quality. Like, showcases of great web designs. Sure, they’re good to look at but what is anyone learning!?
Awesome insight Corey, glad you stopped by!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I agree with Corey. Link Bait can be excellent quality. It certainly generates quality comments. Most comments on link bait posts are passionate and engaging.
Commenting is only one aspect of quality content. When you re-read your post, you know whether it is your best or just good enough.
Some of my favorite blogs publish once or twice a week. And every post is quality stuff. Two quality engaging posts far outweighs seven good enough posts.
Keith@Norman Rockwell Art´s last blog ..Nov 29, Santa’s Workshop by Norman Rockwell from 12/14/1922 Clintonville Gazette
I have to agree as well, linkbait can be great if you do it right. I just think that most linkbait is utter garbage.
I would much rather read less and learn more than read more and learn less, I’m with you there as well Keith!
Thanks for sharing your opinion on the topic!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I have to agree with you, a lot of blogs these days just have crap content and nothing good to say about anything. It’s actually very sad, and I hate to see it. That’s why I love Blogussion, great content and always interesting post topics!
Not to mention the people who just write summaries of posts on other blogs and steal content. They should be sentenced to NO INTERNET ACCESS EVER
king.sidharth´s last blog ..World Aids Day – I Will Be Human
Glad you like our content, we put a lot of time into the blog posts we write up here.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
It does seem a lot of the time that the perception of “quality content” is shaped by the number of subscribers or commenters on a blog, as opposed to actual quality. It is, however, an unavoidable side effect nowadays. The Internet, and blogging, have so few barriers to entry that anyone can participate. It’s a great thing, but can be annoying at times.
Chad´s last blog ..What is a Firewall and Do I Have One?
I’m with you Chad, one article with a lot of comments, retweets, diggs, whatever can really shape an entire persons view of the blog and think that everything is quality right off the bat. We both know that’s not always true!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
IT’s a great idea to look back at your work, and carefully consider wether it is quality work or not. The same goes for our blogs, and our articles. I do agree, posts should be of quality, and should teach people something (in our type of blogs), or need to bring new ideas. However, we also need traffic to read those high quality posts. So those list-type posts do serve some purpose. They will even be useful to a part of your readers. It may be a list of apps they can use and didn’t know yet, or a list of great blogs, half of which is new to them. Creating lists is also a way of sharing knowledge. That is, if it is a quality list
I think the best way of working, and keeping quality high, is by not overdoing these not-so-high-quality posts.
Bjorn @ iCan’t Internet´s last blog ..Increase your Alexa Rank
I love looking back into the archives of my blogs and just read some of my content. It’s amazing what I would call “good” and “bad” and how much my opinion of the topic has changed since then. But, I always like to think that every post I write has some kind of value to them in their own way! But I did find a few posts (yes, here) that I may think twice about publishing now.
I may have written this post as a person who hates list posts, but what I am really trying to say is that the majority of list posts on the web (10 great blog designs, Trends of 2010, etc.) are garbage. There are many list posts out there that are actually useful, but many of us would rather take that easy way out and post the crap.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Thank you for the passionate post. I also notice that all blogger write the same thing. I am lack of some good post from where I can learn more about blogging tips. I want more information on SEO tips so that I can improve my SEO work.
chandan´s last blog ..How to submit article to article directories
Thanks, this is a very serious topic and I thought the best way of getting my opinions out would be to write an article on it!
All it takes is a little brainstorming and patience, and you can get some great article out!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Teachers the world over rehash “old material” every day. Every single topic has hundreds of books written on it. Dictionaries and encyclopedia are full of information you never encountered before, but just because you wouldnt be motivated to comment on a dictionary definition doesnt make it valueless.
Every body has a different point of view and a different way of expressing themselves. As long as you dont plagiarise, and you try to put your own stamp on a post, what’s the problem if it isnt a rad new topic.
highlights on hair´s last blog ..5th of 20 amazing facts about hair
If you can inject your own ideas and opinions into something that has been written time and time again, then I think it’s going to be a quality post. But what I was trying to get across here is that there is too much of posting the same stuff without adding anything new or exciting to the topic.
But I agree with your example, we don’t comment on a dictionary definition, but it’s still very useful. Using your comments is just one of many ways to kind of test out how great your content may be.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
This post just about made my day! Even though my blog has only been out for a week, I did some effective promotion and managed to get a wave of several thousand uniques on my 4th or 5th day. Now, nearly all the posts that I’ve published are getting an A+ rank according to this system, and none have less than a B.
I’m happy with that!
Robomaster @ CoolAppSite´s last blog ..Microsoft Security Essentials Review
Glad you like it.
That’s a lot to be proud of Robert, congrats! If it fis with your niche, a post reflecting on that would probably do very well.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I was off the blogging world for approx a week or more so wasn’t reading much stuff around. I just landed on Blogussion and man this is one cool and very true post I got to read.. cool stuff mate.. Really something considerable and true !
Enk.´s last blog ..Display Related Posts with Thumbnails in Wordpress
Well, welcome back to the blogging world Enk! I hope it’s enough to get you back on track with the right ideas in your head.
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
Honestly this is one of your finest articles out of your blog. I totally agree with point of A+ and B is reasonable grade for your content. According to quality content is most important and also more important is how we post, I mean which part of our article we are posting.
Thanks a lot Chris, that really means a lot!
Alex´s last blog ..The Importance of Motivation for Success, and why Young Entrepreneurs have a lot to be motivated about
I loved the grading system.
As it turns out, you’re totally right! Whenever
you’re getting more “Great post” comments
then real responses with questions and doubts-you
end up with a low quality post.
Counter-intuitive, but so true.
Igor
Igor Kheifets-Internet Marketing Tips´s last blog ..Weekly Friday Roundup 25.12.09
Well-said! Posts should also be under a certain word limit. I skimmed through part of this post…but read the summary. At end of each blog post..people should put a summary.
Cory
High School Entrepreneur
I’d really like to see bloggers putting together list posts with submisisons from the readers, that way the post is there for a purpose and can increase the community discussion by encouraging readers to commment and talk rather than using the list as an attempt to gain tons of traffic.
Jasmine Henry from System Fail News´s last blog ..Which Console Do You Like Best?
Well, it is difficult to write great content. But I have seen most bigger blogs have great content. Great content is the thing that takes them to such heights. But once they taste success, the usefulness of their content does fall a bit.
Shubh-Regular Blog Tips´s last blog ..Now your blog’s speed can affect its Google ranking
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