Welcome to Catchtheposts! I hope that the content of this blog will be helpful to you. Don't hesitate to use the contact form to send me your comments, feedback, suggested topics or questions. Thanks for visiting!

If you're new here, you may consider to subscribe and receive all new tips for free. Updates may be delivered on your feedreader or directly on your mailbox!.

Photo by Martini Captures

I think that everybody will agree about the quality; quality is important everywhere in the organization. In fact, any serious organization will have indicators which are metrics to measure the quality. Obviously, the metrics differ from department to department depending of what we want to measure. Here is a short list of the quality level we may want to measure in traditional businesses:

1. The products itself.
2. The development procedures.
3. The commitments (shipping dates, etc.).
4. The customer care.

And it’s important to note that everybody agrees about the quality itself, but no one has the same definition of it because quality is subjective! In fact, 2 organizations that produce the same product will have a different level of quality. Why some organizations are doing low quality products? Because generally quality cost money and low quality means low cost and, believe it or not, there is a market for low cost products. As a customer we want the best products at the lowest cost and this means that we do the math: quality vs price. If the ratio is high, we buy. If the ratio is low, we leave it on the table and we pass to another level of quality (price). This is as simple as that!

At the end, quality will always be subjective and there will always be customers for different level of quality. However, I think that blogs are quite sensitive to quality. And, in that context, the quality is measured by the visitors - if they found the content at all - and the search engines. What we generally call high quality content will be viral content and will generate enough links to get the authority it deserves. In summary, it thinks that quality is much more severe in the digital world!

Now if we take few moments to list the main activities that will be subject to quality control, we will get the following:

1. The web design appearance (cosmetically).
This is part of the quality perception and it will be totally subjective. However, I would recommend to make some extra effort in that area since we never have 2 chances to make a good impression!

Resources:
http://www.problogdesign.com/
http://www.skelliewag.org/cream-of-the-crop-six-cutting-edge-minimalist-wordpress-themes-230.htm
http://www.problogger.net/archives/category/blog-design/

2. The usability of your blog (which include a bunch of things!).
The usability includes the structure of your blog, the links (is there broken links?), the position of the different elements, etc.

Resources:
http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2007/04/09/Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog — Condensed from Dozens of Bloggers’ Experiences/
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/04/10/usability-tips-for-bloggers/
http://www.skelliewag.org/

3. The clarity and readability of your blog.
If your visitors feel confused when they visit your blog, they will leave quickly and won’t come back.

Resources:
http://www.blogherald.com/2007/12/03/improving-your-blog-clarity/
http://www.skelliewag.org/

4. The posts (the content).
Content is King! Take few minutes before writing an article. Put your idea on a piece of paper and build your article structure. Take the time to challenge what you are about to write and ask you some questions about the 6 W (Who, What, Where, When, Which, Why).

Resources:
http://www.doshdosh.com/what-is-good-content/
http://www.skelliewag.org/the-webs-best-content-has-one-thing-in-common-207.htm
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/07/13/how-to-write-excellent-blog-content-what-we-wish-we-knew/

5. The audience care (answer emails and comments).
The blogger is nothing without its readers! Take the time to take care of your audience. Be careful and generous.

6. The commitments (whatever you may have committed to your audience).
This is a matter of integrity! YOU are what make your blog unique. If you don’t hold your promises, then you won’t build quality relationship. Blogging is all about relationship!

7. The comments (through comment moderation and spam filter).
Comments are part of your blog. Moderate your comment will let you control the quality of this element. Be sure, however, to be an effective moderator.

I really think that the blogosphere is much more severe in terms of quality. This is probably due to the big number of blogs and the fact that quality is, in part, measure with specialized algorithms (which are not subjective at all). But at the end, the severity against the blogs is a great thing. It is acting just like a natural selection to leave the stronger alive and the weaker to die. This put more pressure on bloggers to produce beautiful blogs and valuable contents.

If you want to be sure to catch the next post, take few minutes and subscribe now!

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 am and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.