In 2019, the focus for many marketing teams around the world is on high-quality content. This is great, but what does it actually mean? When it comes down to it, ‘high-quality’ is subjective so how do you ensure that your content meets the mark? Let’s find the answers about the importance of quality content!
Writing to Engage
According to Google, there are two aspects as to what makes content ‘high quality’. Firstly, it needs to be original, researched, and well-written. As a business, this is something you should be doing anyway. Secondly, it should have a clear purpose and offer value. If this value isn’t clear within the first minute, people will simply click away and continue their online experience elsewhere.
With this in mind, we recommend writing to engage before worrying about anything else. If you aren’t engaging the audience and writing in a way that resonates with them, they’ll click away, and this has a double effect;
- You lose the attention of the people who have the potential to buy from you.
- Google sees that visitors are clicking away quickly, and you fall down the SEO rankings. Quality SEO strategies are an important part of ranking within the Google search engine.
A Change in Consumer Demand
Another reason why quality content is so important is that consumers have wised up to the tricks of businesses. Many years ago, we would simply fill each page with as many keywords as possible (even if the content didn’t make sense!). Today, we’re living in a very different world.
If you want an example, you only need to look at GoPro. Did you know that only 2% of the 5,000 most popular YouTube channels belong to a brand?GoPro is in this tiny percentage. How?
Well, they do make exciting videos with backflips over canyons and things like this. However, success comes down to their ability to meet the demands of the audience. The brand message takes a back seat, and they ensure that the videos they upload are the sort of videos the audience wants to see.
With this, the audience engages with likes, comments, and shares. Google sees that the video is offering value to the audience and pushes it up the search results page, and the whole process continues in a positive spiral.
Although we’re talking about writing today, the process remains exactly the same. The more you think about your audience and what they need, the easier it will be to produce content that resonates with them. As they engage, Google sees your value and you’re rewarded with a higher ranking. Your audience grows, more people engage, your ranking increases, etc.
Reliable Source of Information
Furthermore, you should also be focusing on quality content because it positions your brand as an expert in the field. In a world where consumers aren’t sure where to go or who to trust for their news and information, why not stand up and take responsibility? Reliable sources are also featured on reliable websites. Try reaching out to some popular industry websites to get content featured. If you write a good enough piece of content, authority sites will want to publish it. There are also sites like Wikipedia where you can get profile pages published, we would also advise though that you find a Wikipedia entry service to publish the content for you. There are specifications you will need to meet when publishing content to Wikipedia, so you want to be sure you are meeting the content requirements.
As you continue to produce great content, your reputation will grow, and people will see that you really understand your industry.
Tips
If you’re getting started with quality content this year, we recommend the following;
- Answer the most common questions you receive on social media, through email, and in person.
- Make sure you cite credible sources and check all your facts before publishing any content.
- Use high-quality images.
- Try to add to the content already available online rather than reproducing the same content.
- Add value to your audience; this should be the only reason for posting. Answer some questions, make the reader laugh, or keep them informed.
- Avoid spelling mistakes, broken links, slow page loading speed, and ads that distract from your content.
