Content quality is a personal matter. Some people will prefer a high-level summary, whereas others may seek out the further depth and professional views. Readers will find quality content more valuable, memorable, and inclined to share it than the content that is currently available.
As SEOs, we frequently write about topics that readers are looking up. Although this makes the information useful, you’ll find that many top-ranking websites frequently repeat the same ideas. You can feel like you’re reading the same information repeatedly after reading the first few results.
Although there are many terms, such as 10x content and skyscraper content, all you need to do is create something superior to what is already there.
You are in a better position when creating fresh material. The content that ranks is visible, and that is the standard you must surpass.
Examine how to accomplish that now.
How to create quality content
Writing high-quality content requires both science and art. It also calls for a great deal of effort and knowledge.
The data available to SEOs is vast. We observe:
- By using keyword research, you can find anything people look up.
- everything for which the best material is ranked.
- everything is covered in the existing content.
Many people who search want to find the most basic information possible efficiently. Useful content is that which is arranged, clarified, and simple to read and scan.
Although a lot of the content produced by SEOs is meant to rank in search engines, people can also benefit from it. We frequently address user searches and provide information on the subject. That kind of content serves as an excellent introduction to a subject for many users.
The issue is that we frequently pass off our expertise as our own or that of our writers.
You need actual expertise to produce high-quality material.
Your work can be distinguished from what is already available by:
- revealing your knowledge, experiences, and insights.
- including information that is only yours.
- expressing an opinion, offering a fresh perspective, or being original.
Numerous pages that are currently ranked have probably been doing so for years. It’s possible that they improved their content throughout that time by updating and improving it.
A lot of strong and pertinent links may also be present in existing content. Top-ranking material has a tendency to receive more links, which makes it challenging to surpass.
This type of material requires more work than most businesses are prepared to put forth. It can be challenging to gain support without demonstrating some form of preliminary outcomes. It might be much simpler to make the case for the funding required to produce this material after you have a few hits or some preliminary results.
I find that many businesses make the mistake of treating content creation as a one-time effort rather than an iterative process. If you have more resources and wish to produce greater content, you may always make improvements to your current work.
How to measure quality
Quality is subjective, making it challenging to quantify. Word count and keyword density are two factors that many SEOs would consider, although these are poor measures. Some questions, like how old someone is, can be adequately addressed with a single number. Not every detail of their existence is necessary.
There is no one ideal method to evaluate quality.
SEOs may want to look at:
- Rankings.
- Traffic.
- Links.
- Mentions.
- Social shares.
Businesses will want to measure:
- Conversions.
- Qualified leads.
- Revenue.
User happiness is another factor that you might want to think about.
Finding relevant results for numerous individuals with numerous requirements and wants is a challenging task for search engines. Generally speaking, they provide a diversity of content that caters to various user intentions so that everyone is likely to find something valuable.
Let’s look at some of the recommendations search engines have made for content creation.
How search engines think about quality content
Google developed several algorithms to find the best content for users. Additionally, they give a lot of direction regarding what they are searching for.
They use a variety of words to characterize the kind of content they are seeking, including:
- Expert.
- Authoritative.
- Trustworthy.
- Relevant.
- Useful, helpful.
- High-quality.
- Original.
- Comprehensive.
- Interesting.
- Insightful.
- Factual.
- Detailed.
- Engaging.
- Credible.
- Informative.
- Valuable.
- User-centric.
- Authentic.
The majority of those are difficult to quantify subjective adjectives. The questions their engineers ask themselves and even the advice they provide their quality raters still offer a lot of assistance.
Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines
Google has quality guidelines, which are:
Basic principles.
- Create pages with users and not search engines in mind.
- Don’t mislead your customers.
- Avoid using tactics designed to raise your search engine results. A good rule of thumb is whether you would feel comfortable outlining your actions to a Google employee or a competitor’s website. Asking “Does this benefit my users? ” is another helpful test. If there were no search engines, would I still do this? ”
- Consider what makes your website special, valuable, or interesting. Make your website unique compared to others in your industry.
Specific guidelines.
Avoid the following techniques:
- Automatically produced information meant to skew search results.
- Being a part of link schemes.
- Making websites with scant or no original content.
- Cloaking.
- Subtle redirects.
- Concealed text or links.
- Opening pages.
- Scraped material.
- Engaging in affiliate marketing without delivering enough value.
- Loading sites with pointless keyword searches.
- Creating websites that engage in malicious activity, such as phishing, or adding malware such as viruses or trojans.
- Utilizing structured data markup improperly.
- Sending Google automatic search requests.
Follow good practices:
- Keeping an eye out for hacking attempts and removing any compromised content as soon as it appears.
- Avoiding and getting rid of user-generated spam from your website.
