I talked to a web designer yesterday about a client we both share; unfortunately through her design time and my blog consulting time, we realized this client was going to fall into the “why aren’t I getting more traffic – my website has been up two weeks!” category.
That led, as many of these talks do, to a discussion of SEO content.
Like many website owners, our client didn’t want to invest any cash into even basic SEO tweaks, didn’t care about looking at site statistics (and even fought us on installing Google Analytics) . . . but worse (IMHO) was their inability to comprehend that they were writing “vitamin” content instead of “pain pill content”.
Huh?
Vitamin content is good stuff – but doesn’t solve a problem, and pain pill content serves up info that solves a problem.
For example: If I were writing about flying a stunt kite, vitamin content would tell you the benefits of being outside, the fun of stunt kite flying, or the history of stunt kites.
Pain pill content would show you how to put a stunt together together without tearing out your hair, or how to do loop-de-loops without killing innocent bystanders with an out-of-control kite!
Simple concept, eh? But one we often forget because we get so wrapped up in the theory, not the “how to”.
Want more examples? Check out Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog – - notice how many “pain pills” he writes about, i.e. How to Make Gmail Your Ultimate Productivity Center. Since most of us use Gmail, and most of us have time challenges, Leo’s post had information that solved e-mail overload and time deficit – - pretty good post don’t you think?
Does this give you an idea for writing some of your own articles or blog posts? Comment below – what’s your best pain pill?
(And if this “pain pill” concept is yours please contact me – it’s great stuff, but I can’t remember where I first heard about it!)
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I like the differentiation between vitamin and pain pill content. Pain pill content solves a problem, and vitamin content is the “la-la” page, feel good type of page which solves no problem Interesting.
I’m pretty sure I’m serving up laxatives to my clients.
Seriously, though, its a good topic to think about. I have some personal sites that I think may have too much vitamin content on, and not enough pain pill content…I’ll have to remedy that!