Website content comes in a few forms: text, video, audio, images, graphics, software, etc. Depending on the website type this or that content type is domineering.

The internet primarily fulfills an informational function. I guess the expression ‘Content is king‘ originates from that fact (’uniqueness‘ is also a boring cliche of high quality content). Everyone is bored with this saying, but a discussion of what really constitutes high quality content shows that ideas and opinions on this issue are different.

I find these descriptions more accurate and fresh to my ear:

-    smart
-    useful
-    relevant
-    credible

The way of content presentation on the web is also important. People do not read – they scan headlines and text bodies. So your task is to get their attention. And it is not so easy when everyone is short of time and with so many options of info sources.

Also recent changes of web content are evident and they are likely to progress:

Denying there have been some major change of direction of the web in general in the last year or two is just burying one’s head in the sand. And that change is mostly in the form of new content types (maps, videos, pics, garbage) that is hard to monetize (if not impossible) through contextual text ads.

Really:
written content = contextual text ads
videos =? ads
maps =? ads
applications =? ads

The web is going through the same transitions as the industrial world, the goal here is to adapt and anticipate, not live on our accomplishments. Sure, huge textual content sites will be around for a while and will have their reason for living, but don’t forget that in the web time frame, everything moves quicker. Change might hit us faster than expected.

Summary: When I contemplate on content I think if it is a long play for independent web publishers. More companies come to the web, they take niches that nobody found interesting a year back. I do not think that it is too bad (it is too bad for independent website publishers only) – the users will get information products of a better quality.

[tags]content, websites content, content management, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, make money online, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 3:20 am and is filed under Content Generation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.