In recent years the rise in popularity of social media websites has paralleled the rise in popularity of blogs. Search engine optimization (SEO) used to be the primary way for websites to draw traffic. Now social media optimization (SMO) has the potential to draw far more visitors very quickly, whereas with SEO there is going to be somewhat of a waiting period while your site gains ground in the SERPS.
One of the biggest impacts that social media websites like Digg and StumbleUpon have had on the blogosphere and the internet as a whole is the increasing need for high quality content. Social media sites by nature reward those who create the highest quality, most unique content (although there’s also a lot of politics and popularity contest issues that affect social media traffic). If you are not creating quality content that draws interest from social media you are missing out on one of the best traffic generation methods available.
SEO doesn’t really require creative content because search engine robots just aren’t the same type of judges as human readers. Social media has helped to make the internet a more interesting and informative resource because it forces bloggers and website owners to constantly create something of value to compete for the huge amounts of traffic that are awarded to the “winners.”
Success with social media websites is just one of the many benefits of creative and unique blog content. Bloggers who are constantly striving to be original and attractive to readers will benefit in numerous ways, including:
Interested Readers.
In order to build a successful blog you have to be able to grab your readers’ attention and hold it. Creative content will allow you to do this. If a blog’s posts are the same as many other blogs, why would visitors want subscribe or come back later?
Repeat, Loyal Readers.
If your visitors recognize that you consistently provide original articles that they enjoy and appreciate, they’ll subscribe or at least return some time down the road. With consistency and quality you’ll develop a loyal base of readers that be the cornerstone of your blog’s success.
Word-of-Mouth Referrals.
What makes you tell a friend about a product or service? Most likely it’s going to something unique and interesting that you don’t think your friend knows about. Blogs are no different. If you’re like every other blog out there you’ll get very few referrals from your readers, but if you’re different and interesting you may get a lot of readers that want their friends to know about you.
Inbound Links.
Gaining inbound links is one of the inevitable tasks of every blogger who aspires to achieve success. Creating original and unique content is a proven method for quickly building inbound links. Social media websites are an invaluable resource for link building. Many pages that become popular with social media will quickly rack up a lot of links from other blogs.
Sustained Traffic.
Building traffic is hard enough, but building consistently high levels of traffic is even harder. If your blog consistently publishes creative content your chances of sustaining high traffic are pretty good. Once people find you, the creative blog posts will keep them coming back for more. This goes hand-in-hand with repeat and loyal readers.
Reputation.
If you want to develop a strong reputation among readers and other bloggers, unique content is a great start. You’ll be successful if you can develop a reputation as being a go-to blogger for great, original information.
Anticipation from Readers.
Once readers come to expect creative blog posts from you, they’ll be eagerly anticipating your next post. This is a very good thing. Most RSS subscribers get tons of blog feeds each day and really read a fairly small number of them. If they’re anticipating your posts, you’ll be one of the few that they actually read on a consistent basis, rather than skipping over your feed to see what’s next.
Trust.
As a blogger you will need to develop the trust of your readers. Building trust takes time, but it’s much easier if you’re providing readers with information that they can’t get anywhere else. You’ll quickly become a trusted source that they’ll turn to first when they are looking for something specific.
Brand Awareness.
Building a successful blog involves a lot of branding. In many cases you’ll actually be branding yourself rather than a company. Brand awareness is all about what people associate with your brand. If readers associate you with original, creative content you will have successfully branded yourself and your blog.
Need.
If you publish unique blog posts, readers will have to come to you if they want what you’re providing. If your content is not really unique, they’ll be able to find it somewhere else. If readers are in a position of needing to subscribe to your blog to get what they want, you’ll easily gain loyal readers.
Easier Marketing.
It’s pretty obvious, but creative content is much easier to market than content that is the same as every other blog. Whether it be social media marketing, link building, word of mouth, it’s all easier when you’re unique.
Increased Income Opportunities.
Advertisers are always interested in blogs that publish creative content because they know their ads will be seen by a lot of people consistently. You may also have special opportunities as others seek you out for due to your blog and its following.
Avoiding Direct Competition.
If your blog is truly unique, other blogs will not be able to offer your readers the same things. Creative content protects you to a certain degree against direct competition. It’s an excellent way to grow and maintain an audience while other less-creative blogs struggle and fight over readers.
As you can see from all of the issues discussed above, creative content is one of the biggest keys to blogging success. If you have unique content that people appreciate, you’ll almost certainly succeed. But if you simply produce blog posts that are very similar to the posts of other blogs, you’ll have a very difficult time standing out and reaching the level of success that you desire.
Content creation needs to be one of your biggest priorities as a blogger. It’s your content that will turn visitors into subscribers and subscribers into loyal readers. Make sure that you have enough time in your schedule to create effective blog posts. Resist the temptations to publish quantity over quality. If you need to reduce your posting frequency in order to increase the quality, do so.
What other benefits do you see from creative content?
28 comments from readers
1 Webmaster Tips Nov 7, 2007 at 10:42 pm
I clearly understand the importance of Creative Blog Content. The idea of getting huge quality traffic from Social Bookmarking websites is no more simple. Most of the Top listings of Digg and Stumble Upon are manipulated by some webmasters who are paying others to vote for their posts.
2 Vandelay Design Nov 7, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Yes, some people are definitely paying for that traffic, but there are plenty of others that are using social media without paying. I’ve never paid anything for it and social media sources like Digg and SU are my biggest sources of traffic (although it’s only been a few times with Digg, it’s very large amounts each time).
3 afvallen Nov 8, 2007 at 2:10 am
Content is still king. But paying helps.
4 Wayne Liew Nov 8, 2007 at 3:01 am
I must admit that creative contents is just something precious nowadays, especially for bloggers but what made me scratch my head everyday is all the brain juice that I must churn out in order to be unique from others because of all the benefits you have stated above.
With most of the niche saturated and most of the common things being published all over the Internet, sometimes, something that came out of your mind is not creative any more. I guess one more thing that can make a blog or content unique is our style of phrasing something.
We can be the same in terms of contents but in terms of style of conveying the contents and our opinion on certain things, creativity can be sparked.
5 Christine O'Kelly Nov 8, 2007 at 1:06 pm
This is an excellent post and one that I will be forwarding to my clients. Having worked in the SEO biz for several years, it is absolutely undeniable that social media is the way to go. Many of the SEOs I work with do the SEO part as routine maintenance but have had to shift to social media to produce the results that the clients really want. The clients themselves don’t fully understand the benefits of social media, which is exactly why I will be forwarding this post.
Plus, social media traffic is so much more exciting and fulfilling. Producing great content leads to lively interaction that gives a business incredible insight into the minds of their customers and the heart of their industry.
6 David Hopkins Nov 8, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Good post. *stumbles*
Have had any web design business that you know has been a result of social bookmarking.
I have always find the best clients are referals, they trust you more than someone who just found you on the internet.
PS - Your blog seems to be doing pretty well for RSS readers.
7 Vandelay Design Nov 8, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Wayne,
You have a good point about the phrasing of a blog post. Some bloggers are able to write in a creative way that will stand out even without truly original content. I think it’s one of the biggest challenges for most of us. I probably spend just as much time coming up with ideas as I do with actually writing the articles.
Christine,
Thanks for your compliments. Yeah, it really does seem like most SEO work these days is heavily involved with social media. That’s true, social media traffic is exciting, I think that’s part of what keeps people trying to achieve success with social media.
David,
I have had a jump in inquiries about new business immediately after getting a lot of traffic from Digg and StumbleUpon. I don’t think that those people necessarily came from those sites, but social media traffic leads to a lot of links, and maybe that’s where the traffic comes from.
8 Blogger’s Guide to Creating Better Content << Vandelay Website Design Nov 8, 2007 at 7:00 pm
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9 Forrest Nov 8, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I hope this is true … I’ve had my blog five months now according to the archives, and there are only 22 posts. It takes a while to come up with good material, and I’ve always thought it’s better to be consistently good, but slow, then to put anything out to meet a self-imposed schedule.
But it’s nice to read somebody with experience in this area say the same thing. Even if you managed to put it a little more articulately than I would be able to.
10 David Hopkins Nov 9, 2007 at 4:41 pm
You certainly have a lot of links.
I think the potential clients you can get though your blogging would possibly be better clients. They are more likely to be people actually involed or related to the industry, so are more atuned to what web designers go through.
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12 make money with Nov 14, 2007 at 4:12 am
I belive paying for traffic is not great. I’ll get visitors on my blog Simultaneously if there is any creative posts. ppl have to come back if there they find things which is really good. i agree with U.
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Absolutely! Now it is getting more popular day by day. It because social media traffic is so much exciting and fulfilling now a days.
15 sponso Nov 20, 2007 at 8:27 am
Yea i agree with you we should keep an eye on the quality of our blog.
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25 Free Myspace Layouts Jun 10, 2008 at 2:31 am
I think blogging is very important. It provides so much fresh new content for search engines to update. With having constant new content users will continue to visit the site, you basically create user loyalty. Great article, good read!
26 Free Resume Jun 10, 2008 at 8:22 am
Blog is the tool used by many people who don’t want to create websites. or many people prefer blogs instead websites because they want to upgrade their content daily without using messy html tags. After reading this post i think that creative blog content concept is very useful to increase traffic by increasing visitors.
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28 Burak Önal Jul 25, 2008 at 4:16 am
Content is still king. But paying helps.