Today we present to you a customer of Sidekick Content, here to share his experience of the importance of good text content for websites. Christoffer Björkwall is an online entrepreneur within affiliate marketing. He runs a vast number of websites, and above all the gift site Presenttips.se. We asked him a few questions that he was kind enough to answer.

How long have you been working with online affiliate marketing?

Basically I started working on websites as a hobby already back in 2000 – but I didn’t at all understand what I was doing. I knew nothing of search engine optimization, programming language or advertising, and I quit for a few years. In 2004 I met an American living well off of his income from Google Adsense, and this was an eye opener for me. Since then I have worked with affiliate marketing, in the beginning as a hobby, but now as self-employed.

What is the best part about having a job like yours?

The freedom. I love to travel, and having an online business facilitates working from where in the world I want to work. It’s easy to create a lifestyle around the job and to choose the life you want. Sometimes I work an insane amount of hours and sometimes I can take things real slow. It’s an amazing freedom to being able to choose geographical location, time and to a certain extent also what product to work with.

What, in your opinion, makes a good text?

A text must fulfill its purpose. For example, when writing a viral text designed to attract readers, it must stand out either by being controversial or by having humour. It can also stand out by illustrating a new aspect of something that a lot of people find interesting. Writing a guide means writing in a way that leads the reader towards the knowledge they’re after. On the other hand, if the purpose is to create text bulks for SEO-purposes – which sadly is a part of the business – the purpose is to make it happen in a fast and cost effective way.

What I appreciated when hiring Sidekick Content is that they, as in this example, succeeded in understanding my idea of what type of article I wanted. They do the necessary research and then create an easy to read and interesting blog post about the topic. That was a good example of a text meeting its purpose.

What characterises a bad text?

Poor language is something that I never accept. Regardless if it is i.e. spelling mistakes or not recognizing the difference between they/them. Furthermore, a text with a big portion of filling material with no real information is also something that I cannot stand. It’s a waste of the reader’s time and looks unprofessional.

Question: What is more important in regards to SEO, quality or quantity?

That question is more complex than you would think. Of course quality is primarily more important, but writing a quality text takes time and requires a talented writer – so in the end it comes down to cost. Should you spend your budget on 5 well-written blog posts or 15 slightly less well-written blog posts? Google awards websites that are up to date, and this might motivate going for the latter alternative. On the other hand – the only long-term alternative is to create good content for your customers. The focus shouldn’t be on Google, but on your readers.

We thank Christoffer for taking the time and hope that his tips might benefit the readers.