Writing - Quality over Quantity and Relevance
Quality versus Quantity Blogging
During the past few weeks I have read a number of confusing, yes confusing to me, blogs about writing and the number of articles that I should publish on my website over a specific period. These blogs also project, really guess, the number of clicks my website might get based on the number of blogs that are available to read on my website.
I agree a certain amount of content is needed on almost any website to begin to develop authority and improve rankings. The exception would be what I call a pure sales website but more about that later.
Establishing authority aside there are two main factors I consider when I think about writing a new blog and how much effective posting I can do in any time period.
- My audience - Why do they click on my website? What does someone hope to find or learn from my website? How can I best meet my visitors' expectations?
- Quality content - Providing quality content that is well-written, has accurate facts, is easy to understand, and tells the reader what to do next (a call to action).
As a consumer, those are the two things that I look for when I am searching to learn about something or solve a problem I have using an Internet search request.
Setting Standards - What's Doable for You?
Many of us are allowing ourselves to be held to a high standard of publishing 12 posts a month or about 3 per week. This may be a great goal and while I can do it once in a while, it would take all of my online time to write three high-quality posts per week. You may be better than I am and I can type pretty quickly.
I see websites that have a number of posts being published each week some of which have little or no factual information. Yup, I'm guilty of that as well. If they follow my development process this kind of post is written by pulling together of a few strands of information found on the web with some personal observations added and then a call to action to go to another post where I can try to sell something.
There is nothing wrong with this formula if it meets your audience expectations, you believe it is high-quality writing, and it works for you.
I have done it and I don't consider it high-quality writing or what my audience is really looking to find. I will rewrite those posts.
Inbound Now recommends the following steps for creating a workable content strategy.
Michael Hyatt, a leadership and personal development coach, conducted a survey in 2012 of his readers and found that 81% wanted him to post less than 3 times per week!
For myself, I am setting writing standards that are achievable and fit into my website development plan. It will not include 12 posts per month but more likely 1 to at most 2 posts a week. My observation is that a website with 300 posts and no visitors or sales in missing the mark by 300 miles.
Relevance and Resonance - Keys to Success
In addition to quality content relevance is important. Relevance, to me, is the content that responds to a need people may have. It should be relevant to a substantial number of people.
For example, when I do my keyword research and look for keywords with a QSR around 100 a monthly traffic projection of 10 or even 30 IF my blog is on the first page of a search result is not what I'm looking for regardless of our training. I look for a monthly traffic projection of 200-300 IF my post is on the first search return page.
I think of it like throwing darts at a dart board. I have a better chance of hitting near or on the bull’s-eye with 200 darts than with 20 darts. It's simple math given that everything else is even. In addition, I think a monthly traffic projection of 20 versus 200 says volumes about a keyword's relevance. A keyword with a monthly projection of possibly 20 visitors is not screaming I'm relevant to me.
Resonance is more complicated. We all see the pictures and posts that go viral and get hundreds and thousands of hits in a short time because they resonate with many people. Call me crazy, and a few have, but I believe one blog that resonates is worth 200 blogs that do not resonate. Resonance is often a result of luck but there must be a way to calculate better odds to improve writing content that resonates better. If anyone knows of one, please send me a Private Message immediately.
Pure Sales Websites
I don't know if this is the right term but there are websites that sell products and have no content. Many of these are brick and mortar store websites and their online presence provides a way for people to see, select, and order their products online. McDonalds for example - there are no 1,200+ word blogs on any McDonald’s website. I know, I checked.
You're probably thinking, I'm not McD's but that is just an example. As the survey below shows, the majority of shoppers (57%) go to Amazon, search engines, and online stores. I guess that leaves people like me in the (9%) Other category as the (12%) website category is a retailer channel.
This only means I (we) need to work harder to get the online shoppers' attention. They way to do that is to be different with a product sales website or with a content blog.
For a sales website we need to provide product reviews and comparisons unless we can find a niche that is unique, not well advertised, and promotable. Jay's football snack helmets website is an example with which we are all familiar.
Conclusion
The majority of us are going to have to write for our online lives and provide that high-quality fact-based content I discussed above. To do that we need to be both strategic and tactical in our website design and promotion approach.
Strategic in that we understand our audience, the questions they are likely to ask, and our ability to answer those questions in a way that builds brand, loyalty, and converts to sales.
Tactical in how we promote our websites and content with a mix of text and graphics, social media and backlinks, and advertising and word-of-mouth.
This is not easy and requires a clear understating of what we are trying to sell and how to engage our audience to create loyal customers. For me it's worth taking the time to make my website structure and content as relevant and resonant as I can even if I only post once a week.
This post is intended to encourage a discussion. Do you think you should hold yourself to writing a specific number of words each day and posting a specific number of posts each week? What do you think? Now for my call to action: Please comment below.
Recent Comments
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Well said. I always go for quality over quantity. Sometimes, I find myself repeating myself when I don't have enough info to write. Rather than repeating myself and writing off topic, I prefer to write a shorter article as long as it is on topic and is of good quality.
I usually try to write at least two articles a week and three sometimes, if I have the time.
Thanks for sharing. A very good post.
Thanks Steven,
Great insight. I procrastinate over hitting that publishing button until I am 100% certain that my content will bring value and answers to my audience.
However, there are times when I've written a post a day for a week and times when I need a break and won't write anything for a day or two as it gives me time to gather my thoughts and ideas to be able to write quality content for the forthcoming posts.
With the batch method I'm now using it does help to write quality content on a daily basis.
I would have to really push to get one a day. I have it down to about 7 or 8 hours over two days. Bo says I think too much.
lol. Sometimes I believe I overthink too.
Do what works for you.
I was posting 3 posts a month, if that, until I signed up for Kyles bootcamp earlier this year.
Once I got into the flow, and used the batch method, posting became easy.
The flip side is if I take a break, it becomes harder to get back into the swing of things - so I try to minimize my breaks or during breaks, I concentrate on activities to do with my online business. :-)
Writing is an art form. As such it requires a considerable amount of practice to perfect this art. In my mind, writing blogs is the forum in which this practice is best conducted.
When it comes to the question of quantity versus quality, it is my firm belief that quality wins out each and every time. I would rather be branded for having excellent quality writing once or twice a week as opposed to producing multiple blogs of varied levels of quality.
Quality should, by its very nature, includes relevance as part of its composition. The same applies to resonance.
Important post. I agree with you... it is very important to build our content but if the quality suffers, it does not bring any benefits.
I am not able to produce 12 posts in 4 weeks plus 4 WA blogs... It takes time to conduct research and analysis, and then plan my posts... plus writing, editing, etc. According to my estimates, I can do 1 post (max 2) and 1 WA blog per week. It gives me enough time to conduct all work properly.
Hi Steven,
I definitely agree that we should always aim for quality and relevance.
I would however say that a traffic projection of 20 can be very good when doing keyword research. If you rank for it, it will bring in traffic for a lot of related terms as well.
I have myself several times ranked articles with a low traffic projection, and eventually they have brought hundreds of visits a month, so terms like that can definitely be worth it.
All the best,
Mikael
Your experience with traffic and ranking is goo to hear. If you really work at it you can find longtail keywords with a QSR around 100 and monthly traffic in the 300-400 range. It's not easy but I have found them.
The keyword I wrote for had the following stats:
4947 841 97 (QSR) 82
Hi Steven, great article and great profile. I was reading the article and it got me thinking about a number of things firstly, this guy writes like a teacher. Had a look at your profile and bingo yes he is :)
Your article makes sense to me of how the WA training is written and structured now so I think you are spot on with what you are saying.Lastly,I struggle to write more than 1 post a week because the last thing I want to do is start copying and pasting stuff online to fill up a content piece. I also try to write with the view that I hope I am being helpful and engaging.Great article Steven,it helped sort out the jumbled thoughts in my head about what I am trying to achieve here.Following you now.
Thank you. I am glad you liked it and it helped you think through some things. There is a lot to do and it's often hard to prioritize.
Steve,
Great post first of all.
I am in your camp on quality Vs quantity of posts. It takes me up to 2 days to be ready to write. I need to reseach, internalize my subject and make sure it adds value, answers a question, helps someone do something, etc.
Maybe it's what niche you are in that determines the correct amount, I am still learning.
Good stuff!
As an old keyboard player it's probably because you're a guitar player. You guys are always slow to write.. JK LOL
This is really dependent on your individual niche as well. Certainly someone who is writing reviews might be able to produce a larger number of them than someone in a less product-based niche.
In the case of selling something like an infoproduct or membership site (like WA, for instance) it's more about educating and developing a connection with your audience.
In the case of product reviews you can do a lot of research and then be more prolific especially if you have a format you can use as a template. I do that as well and it is a little easier and quicker. I agree with you.
Hi Steve, yes that is a good question. I have answered this for myself a while ago and I would always go for quality before quantity. The reason is, as you outlined above, that you write for an audience. If your audience can easily find your website but doesn't spend long there as you don't offer quality content, you won't get anywhere. So I prefer to just publish one or two quality posts a week, if that's what I can manage, than five meaningless posts with a lot of fluff. It will take you a bit longer to build an authority site, but it will be one with great content.
I agree with you. Which leaves me with the question of what to do about SWAG which wants us to post 3 times a week. I don't know how people can cay they can write several posts in a day. Crafting my writing just takes longer.
I would regard that as a general guideline, sort of an average value. And, of course, it depends on the topics you write about. If you offer well researched and thought through posts with a great message or important information, it will take you longer than if you write about something general that hardly requires any research. So I would definitely not worry.
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I enjoyed reading this Stephen.
My understanding is that the reason why you want to write and publish frequently in the beginning is to establish the momentum required to see results. We are so impatient and results focused that frankly this is the only way to speed things up.
I agree with you if you can produce three amazing posts a week or more then that's awesome since you'll get things moving faster. But if what you're publishing is just 'oh hum' how does this help you in the long term with establishing relationships and trust? I don't think it does.
I have heard from some very established bloggers that one amazing post a week is far better than three that are not that amazing, but then they already have an audience and traction so easy to say.
As I see it either you can produce quality at speed or you can't - I can't. In that case you have to take it slower and cultivate better patience.
Thanks
~Mark :)
I agree. I understand why the push to keep us writing. But it can cause more problems than it solves including needing to go back and re-write posts that you wrote earlier. Unfortunately, a lot of things need to come together at the same time which is difficult when you haven't learned th basics.
If you were to do this for a client, you would have a good site map including a framework for a number of posts before you ever started. We just don't know enough when we start to do this. Which causes a lot of ineffective and unfocused work.
But we will get through this.
I agree. I fee like I need to take a break and tidy up all the loose ends before I just create more. :)