Do a search for “content is king” and you’ll find articles that go back almost a decade. What’s that tell you? Not a whole lot, really, because while many web marketers were talking about the value of content way back then, most were talking in terms of content quantity rather than content quality.
Perhaps that’s not entirely fair. The good SEOs always stressed quality content, but still, there was an underlying focus on writing lots of “quality” content. For nostalgia’s sake, take a look at my 2007 post, “Content is Dead, Community is King.” A sentiment I still believe in.
Today, when you hear web marketers talk about content marketing, we are talking less about the quantity of content and much more about it’s quality. And while we should always strive to write epic content, not all content needs to be epic.
But it must be valuable.
Every piece of content you write must meet this one simple demand. If it’s not valuable to your audience, then it just isn’t worth posting. [Tweet This]
But what is valuable content? Great question, and there is no pat answer to give here. It depends on the purpose of the content. Some content is designed to sell, some to inform, and other content is to engage. There are more purposes than just those, but that’s enough to get you started.
Once you know your content’s purpose, the question is, does it fulfill that purpose in the best possible way?
If you can’t answer yes, then maybe your content isn’t all that valuable. If that’s the case, don’t post it. Either go back and make it valuable or trash it. Don’t waste your or your audience’s time on content with little or no value. That’s a sure way to lose your audience. However, valuable content brings them back over and over again, epic or not.