the air

John Chow’s blog has a great post about content creation. I think he does a great job of describing what it takes to have original content and how to go about doing it. He describes his approach in greater detail in an earlier post. That post describes eight different channels for the source of content. John mentions that some of his content comes from comments posted by his readers. This is best explained as follows:

Producing content this way is really the best because you know this is the content your readers are looking for – you can’t get better targeting than giving the readers what they asked for.

As many of you might already know all too well, there are thousands of blogs out there that do not have a solid reader base that will facilitate the author in developing new content. So where exactly does one go? This is where it would help to stay consistent with what you write about in your blog. Remember, one of the key rules to remember in blogging is to write about what you find interesting before giving weight to what your readers want to read. In this case, I am left with the task of coming up with ways to create content with my blog. Here’s where I go to find some content to write about:

• my brain
• Digg
• MSNBC
• BBC News
• ESPN & Yahoo! Sports

To make the list short, I just mentioned a few sites that I visit daily. If you look to the right, you will notice a categories area. This “container” tells you the different types of articles or posts that I have written about. Mostly, I like to talk about a variety of topics. One area that I have stayed away from is politics since I was unsure of what sort of reader base my blog would develop. Since I am still unsure of my reader base, as paltry as it may seem still, I am planning on writing about politics more since I tend to feel strongly about some political issues and events.

I think the best part about what John’s post says is the fact that you, as a blogger, should add your own spin on the topic at hand. I know that I do not always do that, but it is something that I will do from now on. It really doesn’t matter what people have to say about your post because, in the end, it is your blog. Since it is your blog, you are the ultimate king and have final say. Besides, like John said, “The worst that can happen is they ban you from Digg.“

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