How to collect "Content" in an effective manner?

Certificate Course in Content Writing

Chapter-VIII

Guidelines to collect Content in an effective manner

As honeybee moves from one flower to another flower, the content writer has to move from one source to another source to collect inputs/raw data. The finalized content will be the honey that the reader will enjoy. The sources of information can be broadly classified into two categories namely offline and online sources.

Online sources include:

• Websites
• E-books & E-magazines
• Shared Documents
• Blogs
• Social Networking sites

Offline sources include:

·         Books

·         Periodicals

·         CD-ROMs and DVDs

·         Audio and Video cassettes

·         Interviews with Subject Matter Experts(SMEs)

Offline and online sources are not competitors or alternatives but complementary. When you want to collect required information online, you must be good at browsing.

Some tips, which may be helpful to you when you want to collect content, are mentioned below:

• As of today, Google is considered the best search engine and hence, whenever you want to browse, give first preference to Google search engine.
• When Google does not display adequate number of URLs, try other search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, Bing, Ask and AOL.
• If you have enough time and patience, search using four to five search engines simultaneously.
• If you want to collect information about any particular topic in an academic manner, “Wikipedia” is the best portal
• Go for other sites suggested by Google only after collecting information displayed by Wikipedia.
• Google gives utmost and undoubtful priority to content while assigning the page ranks to websites but, never think that the sites that are ranked in the first page by Google as the only best sites in terms of content richness as the owners of several sites use several kinds of SEO techniques to increase their page ranks
• If you are supposed to prepare content for a particular industry, then consult your senior content writers who are into the same domain and subject matter experts to find the best sources for collecting information
• When you find information about a particular topic in different kinds of online sources such as websites, e-books and blogs: set your preference as mentioned below:

1)       E-books & Shared Documents

2)       E-magazines

3)       Websites

4)       News Letters

5)       Blogs

6)       Social Networking sites

(Note: Above preferences are defined according to general experience and common wisdom. The above-mentioned list of preferences should not be followed blindly. The differences between various online sources of information shall be discussed in upcomping chapters)

Written by: S. Chandrashekara Reddy

Contact: chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com