Website Content | How to Get It And Keep It Useful

Content is King. No doubt you've heard this before.

There's just no getting around the fact that in order to attract visitors you must offer useful, fresh, quality information that people, and don't forget the search engines, crave.

One of the best ways of obtaining good, useful content is by writing articles; but hold on a minute, finding an article in an article bank, placing it on your site and forgetting about it is not what it's about.

Remember, we said your site must offer useful, fresh, quality information. Your site won't qualify by uploading rehashed articles that can be found all over the internet or worse yet, articles that are aging like

fine wine on your site. You risk losing value and credibility with both viewers and search engines alike.Good, quality content can be summed up as offering useful information that is current and offers new or interesting points of view. There are several ways to accomplish this and writing articles is an excellent way of adding content but if you're not a writer, and believe me most people are not, there are several ways to add content that is not found everywhere, yet will offer a new, fresh perspective.

- Use Editorials.
Editorials are articles written offering a personal opinion. Editorials are often food for thought and invite viewer opinions.  Urge guests to your web site to write relevant editorials for placement on your site. You will often get good feedback and comments that keep your site interesting and colorful.

- Have articles written for you.
If writing is not your forte, by all means, have it done for you. Elance.com is an excellent resource for writing exclusive articles just for you, and it can be done for as little as $5-$10 each.

- If your an affiliate marketer, use content articles provided by the merchant. Good affiliate merchant programs will often have content articles that you can place on your site. Not all merchants offer this service, but it's a worthwhile benefit for those that do. The articles are typically very informative and they include your affiliate links within the articles.  An excellent way to get relevant, useful content and promote your links as well.

- Exchange articles with guest visitors.
If you have a bulletin board or guest book, invite visitors to exchange articles.  If you use an article, make sure you get exclusivity. When someone writes for you, make sure they won't submit that same article to dozens of other web sites and newsletters.

- News Stories
Keep your site up to date with the latest news stories related to your site topic. Use news stories that are relevant, useful and timely. Simply find a news item you wish to use and write a brief 2 to 3 line summary on your site, then include a link to the full story.  Remember to keep the news articles recent and relevant.

- Interviews
Depending on your web site topic, find someone that is well known in the field and ask them to consider conducting an interview with you. Compose a number of relevant, perhaps burning questions that many people would be interested in and compose an answer and question interview. You'd be surprised at how many interested viewers you might attract.

- Product or book reviews
If you endorse a product on your web site, go the extra step and purchase the product yourself. Use the product and write a useful review.  This not only adds useful, original content, it creates credibility and establishes you as an informative resource.

- Post a forum on your site.
This often gets lots of interest because people can post comments, questions, and opinions. It will also keep viewers returning time and time again to keep up on the latest forum entries. It's also an excellent way to make connections and build joint ventures.