Create good content.

That’s it. Providing visitors with good, relevant, engaging content is the absolute best thing you can do to ensure the success of your site.

People generally do not create a website because they are looking to win an award for their design. It’s because they have a message to share with the world, whether it be about a product or service offered, an opinion to express, or simply some media to share. Regardless of the reason, it is the content of a website that gives it its purpose, its significance, and ultimately its validation.

Often times, people lose sight of this fact and spend their time concentrating on the aesthetic details or a marketing plan for once the website is complete. No doubt these are important and should not be overlooked, but if you aren’t providing your visitors with any useful information you should have never gotten started in the first place. The Internet is already overflowing with websites of dubious value and articles no one wants to read (hopefully not mine!). If you’re taking the time to publish your work online, make sure that you’re providing something worthwhile.

What is good content?
Content is not just limited to text. It can be photos, videos, PDFs, Excel sheets, etc… Virtually any type of sharable media is considered content. The important thing is that you put time into ensuring that the content you offer is unique, well-thought-out, well-researched, well-edited, and most importantly of interest to people who may be visiting your site.

So why is the content so important?

1. Content gives a website a sense of purpose. The content you offer should be the reason why you created your website in the first place! After all, a website is simply a framework that houses and links together pages of information. If you’re not willing to spend time on the content, why bother making the site?
2. Good content will get you noticed on the web. Offering visitors informative and engaging content will help you get noticed on the web and can potentially bring in links from other websites. Obviously no one is going to link to your website if it doesn’t offer anything of interest. It’s really just common sense. (A side benefit of these in-bound links is that they will also help your SEO!)
3. Good content will help you achieve your goals. If you have a goal with your website (as most of my clients do), well-written content will help you come across as intelligent and establish a sense of trust in your visitors. This in turn will help you achieve whatever goal you may have with your website, whether it’s selling a product or service, persuading visitors of an opinion or simply providing solid entertainment value.
4. Content has a direct relationship with search engine optimization. Google likes to reward websites with good content. Providing visitors with unique, helpful information related to your target search phrases is the single best thing you can do to make search engines take notice of your website.

If you plan on creating a website, make sure that you give the content the time and respect that it deserves.

After all, there are already tons of professionals out there who have been writing about the same topics I plan on covering for years. At some point it makes me wonder, does the world really need another blog? Is anyone even going to read this, let alone take me seriously? I would lying if I said I didn’t have second thoughts, but despite these trepidations I have resolved to move forward.

Here are a couple of reasons why:

• If I fail, so what! At least I would have tried. Moving forward in life and finding success often requires some risk. As far as all things are considered, this blog is a relatively minor one.
• I do have an opinion to share, and I think it’s actually a good one. (I realize this may come across as a bit pompous, but I’d like to think I can be a little more modest than some of the others out there in the blogosphere.) I’ve been working professionally for over 5 years now, and I have learned a lot during that time. I have thoughts, techniques, and experiences that will be helpful to both web designers and clients alike. Some of these are things I have never read about elsewhere. There’s no good reason for me to keep them to myself any longer.
• It’s karma, dude! What makes the internet great is the wealth of information that it contains. For years I have been gleaning that wealth of info for my own personal gain without giving very much back. It’s time to pay my fair share, and give back to the community that has helped to get me where I am.
• Who knows what might happen? When things become popular on the internet, good things often follow. In addition to personal satisfaction and being popular on the internet for about 2 minutes, a popular blog article may even lead to some business. Hopefully it will at least impress my friends enough to stop making fun of me.
• I will be helping myself. Whether or not others find my blog to be helpful, it will function as a valuable resource for me. I can’t count how many times I’ve been searching on my hard drive or online for some special code to solve a problem that I know I’ve written before. If I simply post that code as a technical example here on my blog, I would be able to find what I’m looking for much more quickly. The added benefit of course is that it can now be used to help others as well.

So for these reasons, I think it is high time for me to start blogging. If you have any questions you’d like answered or ideas for me to write about, please let me know.

At any rate, thank you very much for stopping by. Feel free to have a look at my latest projects, find out more about me, or get in touch if you have a question.

I plan on keeping this blog updated with my thoughts on user-interface design, web standards and accessibility, web development, search engine optimization, online marketing, and pretty much anything else that somewhat relates to the work I do. I have a backlog of good topics that I’ve been stashing away over the past 18 months, so here’s to hoping that a few of those will finally see the light of day!