The English word “content” is translated as “content”. In relation to the Internet, this term can be called any information contained on the site.
Today I will explain what content is in simple terms, and talk about the types and formats of content for web resources.
Content types
Content can be classified according to various criteria, for example, by form it can be text, graphic, audio or video. That is, content is articles on websites and blogs, posts on social networks, photos, drawings, banners, infographics, as well as any videos and audio materials (music, podcasts, interview recordings).
Two or more content formats can be used in one material, in this case the term “multimedia” is applied to it.
Content assignment
By design, content can be:
- Commercial selling. The purpose of this type of content is to attract potential buyers, advertise activities, as well as sell goods and services.
- Informational. Its purpose is to provide website visitors with useful information, to provide answers to questions that users have.
- Educational. This type includes various online courses. With the help of this type of content, a person not only receives information, but acquires a new skill.
- Entertaining content is designed to distract, make fun, and contribute to the relaxation of users.
- Engaging content, as the name suggests, engages the user in the interaction. This type includes polls, polls, tests, etc.
This division is very arbitrary, content formats in one material can be combined, for example, advertising banners are often present in an informational article.
Content sources
Ideally, the content on your resource should be copyrighted, unique, unparalleled on other sites. You can create it yourself, resort to the services of freelancers or order from specialized agencies. When creating unique content, the author does not always share exclusively personal experience, he may well use various sources, deeply process information from them, add his own thoughts on the topic and end up with absolutely full-fledged author’s content.
I do not advise you to post someone else’s content on your resource. If you copy the content of the pages of another site in whole or with minimal changes, search engines may impose sanctions on your resource. If, nevertheless, you are going to place someone else’s content of any format on your website or in the public, it is imperative to provide a link to the source.
In addition to copyright content and copy-paste, one more source can be distinguished – content posted on the resource by users (UGC, user-generated content). This type includes comments, reviews, and guest posts. This type of content shows audience engagement and allows you to get feedback from users, but it should be checked regularly as it may contain malicious links or links to your competitors’ sites.
What should be the quality content?
- As mentioned above, content must be unique in the first place. The meaning of the text in this case may be similar to the materials posted on other web resources, however, words and sentences must be original. Otherwise, the site will fall under the filters of search engines and simply will not be displayed in the search. In addition, visitors, having seen on the site what they have already observed elsewhere, will immediately lose interest in your materials. Also, do not forget about liability for copyright infringement. You can check the uniqueness of the text, for example, using the Text.ru service. For most topics, more than 80% uniqueness is considered sufficient.
- Make sure that the subject of the content corresponds to the subject of your web resource.
- The information must be relevant and useful to users. If the data is outdated, it is necessary to make changes and additions to the previous materials or replace them with other, more relevant ones.
- In addition, the site must be constantly updated with new content. This is necessary both to maintain the audience’s interest in your project, and for its positive assessment by search engine robots. Such sites are much more likely to be indexed by search engines and rank better in search results.
- The content must be literate. Having a lot of errors will cause frustration for both users and search engines.
- In order for the site to occupy the leading places in the search results, the materials must be optimized: contain keywords and have indicators of water content and spam content within the normal range.
- The information that you post on your resource must be truthful. Spreading false data will lead to negative audience reactions and negative reviews about the site.
- Content should be varied. If the site combines different formats for presenting information – text, graphics, video, audio – this not only arouses the interest of users, but also pleases search engines.
You should strive to ensure that your content meets as many of the listed criteria as possible.
Read also: 6 awesome WordPress plugins for content miners
Summary
So now you know what content is. Let’s summarize the above.
The content of a web resource is information presented in the form of text materials, images, video files, as well as audio recordings. The interest and involvement of users and the success of website promotion depend on the quality of the content. Therefore, you should make it unique, useful, informative, truthful and literate.
In addition, since in addition to real people, content on sites is also evaluated by search engines, it must be optimized for SEO requirements.