In the first part of this article, I started to tell you about the characteristics of good content. If so far I have described the importance of the structure, relevance and usefulness of a text, today I continue with the credibility and timeliness of the content. But I’ll start with an older personal experience that is the perfect example of what it means to follow some rules in writing texts.
I’ve had a less pleasant experience since I’ve been doing content at some point. I researched from some reliable sources (i.e. official websites) and made an article that I put online. The point is that the source website hasn’t been updated for a long time, and what I wrote didn’t match what it actually was. The users of the site started commenting and telling them what exactly is in that place I wrote about. The problem is that people didn’t want to understand that I researched from official sources and what I wrote was a simple mistake. And for that, I can say that in a way I paid, that is, I felt guilty for providing readers with erroneous information. Precisely for this, a text must necessarily have the following two characteristics:
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Accurate and credible
In short: no lies and false statements. It’s one thing to write something wrong because of other people, but knowingly lying is totally unacceptable in this job. Once the users of your website discover that you are misleading them, your reputation will suffer and you risk that they will never enter your site again because they will no longer believe anything you want to convey to them. It’s like ordering a product from an online store, and the moment it reaches you, it’s completely different. Do you still order from that store?
On top of that, let’s not forget the power of social media. Your users will post mean comments about you, share the article including their comments, and make bad reviews. For this it is important to know what you are writing about, but if you cannot access the products or services for which you are creating content, you can always consult a specialist or speak directly with the business owner.
Grammar and punctuation are equally important when making a text. I advocate quite a lot for the use of diacritics in texts written in Romanian, but some consider it not necessary. Also, if you don’t know the grammar of the Romanian language, you shouldn’t write or you should take some lessons.
And finally, don’t forget about documentation. If you’re writing articles, make sure you have credible sources where you’re researching and that what you’re writing describes the truth.
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Current and consistent
Some parts of your text may “expire” at some point for various reasons. For example: if you write about a ski slope, it is possible that the prices will only be the same next year, so you will have to change them. But it may happen that some parts have to be rewritten after 3 or 6 months, depending on the topic you have tackled. This also refers to articles on different sites, as well as static description texts.
If you have multiple authors on your site, this should be noted. If you don’t, your readers will feel confused and not know why there is a different approach on certain pages on the site. Consistency is very important. Create a kind of writing code from the beginning that all your collaborators will follow.
