If you want to create a successful blog, you must be able to create timeless content. Cool, so what exactly is timeless content? Timeless content is a high-quality post that doesn’t just make the “daily posting” cut. It’s a post that can be read years from today and still be helpful or interesting. Timeless content is what people look for in a blog. Timeless content is what will make people return to your blog and want to participate in your community!

How do I know if I write timeless content?

If you write timeless content, people will be able to relate to the post at any time in their lives. An example of a post that isn’t totally timeless content is my post announcing the University Kid’s contest. That post does contain good information about why you should sponsor a contest, but the primary focus of the post is on the prizes you can win by entering his contest. In less than 1 month, the contest will be over and the post will be nearly irrelevant. That post is a great example of a quality “daily post,” that isn’t necessarily timeless. Below, I’ve compiled key characteristics of a timeless post.

Characteristics of a timeless post:

• Focused and clear message - Timeless posts are not a miscellaneous rambling of information. In most timeless posts, the message is perfectly clear and the content is not rambled. It is very easy to throw in a bunch of extra words and random sentences in your article in order “to make it longer,” but this will actually hurt your post’s quality. Eliminate the random b.s. from your post, before you consider it quality.

• Provides maximum value - Did you give your readers everything you’ve got for the article? It always helps to provide as much value as possible within your post. Repackaging content into 2 separate posts may seem like a good idea because it gives you a posting idea, but having one high-quality reference article will become more popular in the long-run than 2 put together. Value generates referrals and referrals build traffic. You’ll know if you are providing maximum value to your readers.

• Easy-to-follow structure - Is your post written in an easy-to-follow structure. Are the paragraphs organized and can the reader follow through the article smoothly? It is very difficult to follow and read a disorganized post. When the post is in an easy-to-follow structure, with organized paragraphs, then your getting closer to success.

• Leaves the reader satisfied - The most important aspect of your post is satisfying your readers. If you want to make money online, and always write the best possible post of your life, you’ve got to satisfy your readers and look out for their interests. It’s cool to ramble about the fruit loops that you spilled over your kitchen floor every once in awhile, but if you consistently get into the habit of rambling over personal issues, you will not be providing your readers with any value! What’s in your best interests may be of no importance to your readers and may even have a negative effect on the status of your blog (i.e. decreased RSS, decreased traffic, etc.). Know the focus of your blog, and know the value that you are trying to give to your readers before writing a new post!

Timeless content vs. post length Timeless content doesn’t really need to have anything to do with the length of a post. You could have a short, simple list of 10 high-quality life lessons that could be of huge value to others even if you don’t elaborate. One thing to understand is that timeless posts give the reader as much value as possible and can be read years from now. It doesn’t matter how long the article or list is, what matters most is the amount of value your readers take from your post. It is extremely common for timeless articles to be longer than other articles due to the extreme amounts of value that are packed into them.

Examples of blogs that write “Timeless Content”:

Zen Habits - Great tips for keeping life simple that can be used today, a year from today, or 10 years from today!

Steve Pavlina - Steve is a great writer and really packs each article with as much quality information as possible. His readers never get short-changed!

Think Simple Now - The writer, Tina, provides simple, yet effective tips to help improve the lives of her readers. She really knows how to pack each post with as much energy and information as possible!

The Rating Blog - Alan Johnson from The Rating Blog is currently running the “fastest growing blog on the net.” His content is well-organized and provides his readers with tons of value!

Courtney Tuttle - Courtney is always pushing his standards to provide his readers with great content. Check out his post: “Starting A Blog That Isn’t A Time Sucking Money Pit” and see for yourself! Not only does Court push his standards, he encourages his readers to push their standards. Check out this “best article of your life” challenge!

Problogger - Darren Rowse is notorious for providing the highest quality blogging tips. The name “pro-blogger” is self-explanatory; the guy’s a pro and knows that quality content is the reason that he’s been so successful!

Lifehack - Lifehack contains great tips to improve your life. The site is nearing 66,000 RSS subscribers for a reason: quality content!

Lorelle on WordPress - Lorelle thoroughly explains topics relating to WordPress and blogging. Her site is filled with tons of great tips and easy-to-follow instructions for bloggers to follow!

Self Made Chick - Take the time to read a few articles on this site and you will see that Christine knows how to provide her readers with value; very good stuff.

How do I know if my post is timeless? Ask yourself:

1) Will it be helpful a month from now, 1 year from now, 10 years from now?

2) Does it provide as much value as possible to the reader?

3) Is it focused, easy to follow, and enjoyable to read?

4) Does it cover everything there is to cover about the topic?

5) Would others consider it timeless?

6) Did I put a lot of time and energy into the post?

7) Did I get a lot of feedback in my comments section?

8) Did I think the post through before clicking publish?

9) Did I do some research on the topic?

10) Is this my best possible work?

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Benefits of creating timeless content:

1) Tons of positive feedback

Timeless posts have a tendency to create a ton of feedback in your comments section. You will know when you have a phenomenal post because you will generate a lot more comments than your other posts! Not only do you get a lot of feedback, you happen to get a lot of quality feedback. What do I mean by quality feedback? I’m talking about not just a “nice post,” I’m talking about a range from a few sentences from a few paragraphs response from the reader saying what they thought of your post. More feedback will definitely tell you that you are on the right track.

2) People subscribe to your website

Not only do you get a lot of comments when you write timeless content, you get more RSS subscribers. When you can consistently pump-out value to visitors, they will subscribe and stay subscribed! For the short-term, you may get more subscribers by posting something short, and interesting everyday. But, if you want your blog to reach Lifehack’s subscriber count status, you had better consistently pump out timeless content! In the long-term, timeless content will get more people to visit your website, more people to subscribe to your RSS feed, and generate large amounts of loyal visitors.

3) Higher-rank in Google search

Google looks for quality over quantity when ranking your articles in their search engine. If you consistently pump out a lot of posts with little or no quality, you will still rank lower in google search. When you begin to saddle up and write timeless posts that others can relate to, you will naturally see your website move up the ranks in google search.

4) Higher PageRank

Why will you get a higher page rank from writing a high-quality post? More people will link to your post. It’s a fact that if you consistently write timeless content, your Google pagerank will be higher than most. When you write phenomenal content, more visitors will likely share link-love with the post on your blog that they found especially helpful. The more links to your site, the higher your Google pagerank will be! Higher pagerank = more traffic = more trackbacks = even higher pagerank. The cycle continues: once you’ve got the momentum going, great results follow.

5) Permanent traffic increase

If you take a look at blogs that only “post for the day” they probably aren’t as successful as a blog like Lifehack, Zen Habits, or Think Simple Now. Why? The content on those blogs can be read years from today and still provide value! For these reasons, a permanent increase in overall traffic to their website is a natural side-effect of the hard work put into their posts. You can do all you want to increase your website traffic, but your efforts will probably be wasted if you cannot give your visitors a good reason to stay around your website. The best reason for getting visitors to stay at your website is providing them with quality content.

6) Better online reputation

Having a great online reputation is important to the development of your online business and career. If you are interested in writing and doing freelance work around the net, it definitely helps to have a great reputation. One example of a woman who has built up a great online reputation through her writing is Monika Mundell. She currently writes over at EasyWordPress and has been able to prove her value by providing her readers with great content. Writing great content builds you up a great online reputation and will open up new opportunities for guest blogging. If you build up a great reputation and ask other bloggers to guest post, they really have absolutely NO reason to say “no.” A great online reputation can be easily achieved. If you created timeless content everyday for a few years and did some marketing for your blog, it’s safe to say that you would rake in thousands of dollars each month!

7) Make money online

When you consistently post valuable content, is when you will consistently begin to earn money online. No need for creating new websites for the purpose of affiliate marketing, no need for trying to sell a new product, or concentrating your efforts in other areas. No need to ever try to sell a product. All that you need to do to make money online is provide valuable content. Want to guarantee yourself to make money online? Writing timeless content will always do the trick. If you write timeless content, you completely understand what I’m talking about. Steve Pavlina sums it up best when he says “to become a millionaire, your going to have to provide a million dollars worth of real value.” (From his article: 5 Wealth Lessons From 20 Percent of a Millionaire.)

8) You will see results

Like anything, when you put forth the necessary effort and take the time to do it properly, you will begin to see the results you’d hoped for. This can be compared to weight-loss: when you take the easy way out (i.e. with diet pills, not eating, liposuction) you will get terrible results. When you actually take the time to exercise, eat healthy, and lift weights, you will begin to see the results you’d hoped for. But it all takes time, and unfortunately, most people quit before they really even get started. Hard-work and determination are what will make you successful in the long-run. You can’t just bail out because your RSS subscriber count is looking shallow. You’ve got to keep plugin’ away with timeless content and you will see the results you’d hoped for! The results that you get from blogging are a direct reflection of the effort that you put into blogging.

Want to become a ProBlogger?

So do you want to become a professional blogger or is it too much work for you? If you want a successful blog, you’re going to need timeless content that others will be able to relate to tommorow, 1 year from now, and 10 years from now. This can be very tough for a lot of people. This is the reason that there is currently so many n00b bloggers lurking in the industry hoping that their google adsense will rake in $1,000 dollars tomorrow because they took the time to write a decent-sized paragraph last week and clicked publish! It’s great to dream big (I encourage it…), but if you can’t back up that dream with some timeless content, it’s going to be extremely difficult to succeed!

Best wishes,

Andrew Pavelski