We all heard about the importance of quality content. Writing quality content is possible for anyone. The question is what 
constitutes quality and how to make our writing to be of that caliber. Here are the Three Quality Tests you could apply to help you with your content.
The ideas in this post are mine alone, and could be totally different from what AR corporation and management think is quality content. The "featured" does not mean to be on the main dashboard all the time. It is about being featured in the minds of your readers. This post is about writing for real estate professionals, not for consumers (this would have to be a follow-up post).
I thought about "guidelines for quality content", following the lively discussion on this post. Jessica Horton hit it on the head in her comment when she said that comments "They help me grow and challenge how I think". If you want to write quality content it has to help someone grow and think. I have to confess to being addicted to thinking. My husband says I am doing it in my sleep (not a good thing:). Something that makes you think is quality content. It also has to be useful, and pass a few quality tests.
I will use these tests on this post as an example.
I. First Quality Test -Scope
"How many people would be interested in this topic?" is the question you have to ask yourself before you begin writing. You have to be very honest and critical with yourself. If the answer is "many" you have the starting point for quality content.
Test: This post is about writing quality content, which many of the 90,000 members could be interested in.
II. Second Quality Test - Topics
Quality content has to be on the subjects that are of importance. Two big categories are: High Level Topics, and Advice.
A. High Level Topics
These topics effect many people. You may know, or have an insight into something that the rest of us don't. You may have an opinion that would be valuable for others to learn. You could think about the future in the way that others can't or won't. All of this makes quality content and several people on AR are masters of this type of writing. Here are some ideas for topics for this type of content.
- What is going on in the economy, politics, and RE industry that could effect real estate practitioners?
- Who are the new players (Trulia, Zillow, other?)and what are the implications?
- What is going on in RE in your part of the world that others may want to know?
- What are your analysis and predictions of the future RE developments and why?
Test: this post does not fit this category
B. Advice
This is a big one, since we all crave the newest and greatest to help us in many aspects of our work. This is were the third test of quality gets complicated.
Test: this post is advice on writing quality content.
III. Third Quality Test - Usefulness 
1. Be specific.
The advice is of high quality when it's useful. Generic advice, without being able to apply to other people's situation is not very helpful. This makes giving useful advice very tricky. There are so many people here, how could you possible make it specific to all?
Some may say we are not here to educate others, because it takes too much time. It is true. Giving useful advice takes time and you don't make money doing it. Here is one idea how to make it work.
(Test: this post is specific with steps and examples. It took several hours to write.)
2. Describe your situation
Tell us about your business and your market. If you are writing about some marketing idea, what works for an agent with 5 buyers agents may not work for a solo practitioner.
Tell us about yourself. Are you an agent with many years of experience? Are you a member of all kinds of clubs? Are you a recognized name in the community?
Tell us if you think the XXX marketing success could be replicated by others without such credentials. It would be up to the readers to make the mental calculation, if the XXX successful marketing idea would work for them.
Tell us what your market is like. Something that works in a big metropolitan market may not apply to a small suburb, or a rural area.
Without understanding the specifics of the "advice giver", their advice may not be very useful. Understanding the background would allow the readers to evaluate if and how they could use the advice.
Test: at the beginning I said that anybody can write quality content. Specifics of my background are not needed here.
3. Check if advice is implementable and/or duplicatable by others.
Give advice that could be duplicated. Saying "write quality content" does not constitute quality advice, because others wouldn't know how to implement it. Step by step instructions would.
If you think your advice requires certain skills or prerequisites, say so. For example, do you need to be good speaker, writer, outgoing, or other characteristics for the advice to work?
Test: everyone can do quality writing, nothing special is required.
4. Avoid Selling
If you are giving advice on this platform, give it freely. How and why should we avoid selling, if many of us are here to "sell" ourselves in one way or another.
What I mean is this. Don't give "half-advice", enough to get someone interested in your services, but not enough to do anything useful with. If you are giving advice on this platform, give it freely. If it's too much effort , time etc.-don't give it. We need to make a living and may not be in a position to give free advice, because of time and other constraints. That's fine. Selling masked as "advise" is different.
You may disagree with the idea of giving "free" advice, and I respect such positions. As I said before, these are my views alone on what I see as quality content.
(Test: I do not sell coaching, or blogging, or anything else except real estate services in Princeton NJ. If I was in the business related to quality content, it would be OK, as long as this post provided complete and useful information.)
I could not write this post until today when I had a few hours of time to give to the community. It took much longer then I thought it would, to organize my thoughts and write. If I didn't have the time to make it complete, I would wait for more time or not do it. There is no obligation to give advice. When you give it - it needs to be good.
5. Be prepared to give more
Often people have follow-up questions about your advice. It may take more time to provide the follow up, but it's part of delivering quality.
(Test: I am prepared).
6. Spelling, Grammar, etc.
There is nothing I could add to Copyblogger.com. Study everything they write there.
(Test: I fail this one a lot:)
IV. The Grey Area Test
1. Success Stories
We want to share our successes. They are a way to share with friends, boost our egos and potentially inspire others. These are usually the stories that get "attaboy" (in the words of Maureen McCabe) comments and may not promote big conversation or thinking.
I have done it many times. Saying "my blog is #1", or "I get 100 listings a day" (not me) has it's place here, as a special category. It may not meet the quality tests above and could also have a flip side. When writing such posts, I would suggest either making it brief: " Just wanted to share that I am XXXXX", or making it educational and advice with the criteria above. For example: " I have XXX success because of what I did. Here is what I did, how I did it, who I am, how you can duplicate it...."
2. Flip Side
Reading the success stories without achieving success yourself could lead to self doubt, disengagement and potentially giving up. You may ask yourself "Am I a total moron ?" for not being able to duplicate the success of others. First, there could be reasons, why you can't, that do not reflect on your abilities. Second, remember -it's Internet, where reality could be different form a blog.
P.S. Stay Engaged
Quality blog starts with quality writing, but it does not end there. Comments are responses to your ideas and could lead you and your readers in many new directions. Quality blogging is not about speaking from a soapbox. Quality blogging is about interesting conversation.
P.S.S. This post is not about how to get featured on the main dashboard of AR. It's about getting featured in your readers' minds. I am repeating this thought, because the comments seem to be mostly related to AR "Featuring".
If you write with these check points in mind your blog posts could be valuable to others. Quality is about providing value be it on the dashboard, off the dashboard, or in other parts of your job and life.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you would like to learn more about Prnceton NJ Real Estate and Mercer County Homes for sale:
Related Articles:
Princeton NJ Real Estate Mercer County homes -Housing Market Statistics March 2008
Princeton NJ real estate Mercer County - Buyer Information
Princeton NJ real estate Mercer County -Seller Information
Princeton Mercer County NJ Real Estate - Secrets to selling your house like an agent.
Princeton Mercer County NJ Real Estate -Secrets To Buying A Home Like A Realtor
Princeton Mercer County NJ Real Estate Sellers- 3 Things That Sell Houses Now
Princeton Mercer County NJ Real Estate - 5 Deadly Mistakes When Selling Your House
Princeton Mercer County NJ Real Estate - Prices of Houses Sold in Princeton -January 2008
Please call 609-553-4175 to learn how Princeton NJ real estate market could affect your decisions to buy and/or sell you Princeton home.
Comments(84)