There has been a monumental shift in the realm of marketing. The majority of the tangibility in this industry has been labeled outdated. The current kingdom of marketing objectives resides online, and the prime currency of that kingdom is high-quality content.
All metaphors aside, playing in the field of search engine optimization (SEO) is a challenging task, and more than tricks and hacks are needed. You have got to put in all the work you can. That is how you build a strong foundation upon which your content marketing strategy and planning will stand.
Let's dive deeper and understand what people mean when they keep referring to certain things as high-quality content or low quality content.
What does ‘high-quality content’ mean exactly?
There is a plethora of content types found online that we encounter on a daily basis. Here are some of the most common styles for you:
- Blogs
- Guides
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Case studies
- White papers
- Press releases
- Social media posts
Although we mentioned social media posts as a category, it is a whole other domain with many variations. Doing it justice would not be possible. We need an entirely separate article to talk about them. So, we'll put a pin on this topic for now and stick to mainly discussing long-form content here.
So let's get going!
The decisive factor in declaring anything of quality is a matter of varied opinions. In the case of content, too, the same argument stands. A specific person might deem a piece of content of superior standards, but another reader might need a little more from the same content.
There are no hard and fast rules, which could become a problem sometimes.
But if we want to find whether a piece of content qualifies as high-quality content or not, there is a simple way. We judge it by observing if it is achieving the purpose for which we wrote it.
Every piece of content we create has a purpose to it. That is how content marketing works! The more specific you are with your efforts, the better results you will achieve.
Often marketers measure high-quality content if they check the following boxes:
- Length
- Grammatical accuracy
- Appropriate formatting
- Readability
- Visual appeal
- Value to audience
These points are critical, no doubt, but they barely scratch the surface of what is needed to define the bigger picture. In the past, these factors were enough for marketers to set a benchmark for their content. But as search engine algorithms change over time, along with literary perfection, you now have to be smart about assembling your whole content game. Resources like Udemy and Authority Hacker Pro Review can help in this area.
So now we'll talk about some traits that will make your high-quality content into high-performing content.
4 Properties of High-Quality Content
High-quality content is always supported by statistically relevant data
Any well-written piece needs data to back its relevancy in the reader's eyes. And numbers are irrevocably concrete proofs in the audience's eyes because they are substantial and provide an exact measure for comparison purposes.
For example, if you say that a majority of companies use blog posts as a part of their content marketing, the statement sounds generic and might not be taken as seriously as you want. But instead, if you said 48% of companies with a content marketing strategy leverage blogging, it naturally makes it more noticeable and believable in the eyes of the reader.
Representing data in graphical or tabular forms makes it even more readable and, in turn, engaging.
So remember to pepper your content with those stats and religiously update them. Trust us on this; people will come back to your page for those. .
High-quality content is always target-specific
Write for the masses, and very few will read your content. But when you write for a specific niche, all of them will be very interested in your content because there is a particular value you would be offering them.
That's right! The smaller the audience you target, the better the quality of your content will be.
For example, this blog post talks about social media jobs and their requirements. This piece of content will interest people who have been looking for opportunities and related skills in social media marketing.
Hence, this is a very niche-specific article and extremely valuable to its audience. Similarly, Beaches of Normandy, a tour agency specializing in WWII travel, understands the power of niche targeting. Its audience consists of history buffs and veterans' relatives. Beaches of Normandy doesn't create generic travel blogs, delving into informative content and interesting facts about the Utah Beach Museum, the Liberation of Paris, and other WWII topics directly appealing to its target audience's interests.
Encourage to engage
The tone of the content is a very underrated aspect that many writers often tend to forget about. But it would help if you focused on them while forming your content. Because most of their priorities are aligned with their objectives.
Adopting a conversational tone is very effective when you want your audience to get involved with your content.
Ask some questions. Give witty breaks, so your flow can be more varied. Trust us, this will make a world of difference, increasing the chances that the reader will read till the end. And their subconscious will most likely tell them to respond in any way available, like leaving a comment. In our books, that's a win.
Weigh in the social engagement
Like any product, service, or even person, content can be proven successful and effective if it can garner enough social media approval. But in this case, it's not just about social acceptance.
The fastest way of spreading awareness about your product or service is through social media platforms. And if you can reach the right audience, your content will be publicized with those social media shares and likes.
And the more people share it, the more exposure and web traffic you will earn.
So we have highlighted just a few key traits of high-quality content. But why are you running after this asset?
Why do you want to create it?
Do you know the purpose it can achieve for you? Or the benefits it can generate?
Well, an overall perspective, in this case, is absolutely mandatory.
So let's proceed to our next section for further discussion on this.
Why should you even make High-Quality Content?
As a content marketer, have you ever published content just for the sake of publishing?
Or do you write and put up every blog or article on your website after enough research and putting enough thought into it?
If the answer is the latter one, keep going. Because you are doing it the right way.
Setting your goals and being clear about which route to take is an important decision. And you have to be clear on this as it's an essential part of content strategy. And it would be best if you took this as gospel. Because any effort which doesn't have an end goal is energy and time wasted.
You don't want that, do you?
So if you asked marketers about the intent of their content generation, these points would be the majority's preferred answers:
To rank on the SERPs
It's all about playing Google's game. Content strategists would agree wholeheartedly.
Ranking high on search results will get you everywhere. But it's not as simple as it used to be in the past. Initially, poor-quality pieces could rank because people used to find tricks to fool the algorithm. But those days are long gone, and Google has air-tight ranking algorithms which cannot be so easily fooled.
Ranking organically takes a lot of planning and strategizing. And this is the most striven-after goal of any content because ranking is the best way to get that organic traffic.
So you would be right if you said this is the primary goal for creating any content.
In the world of planning, the daily planner app is your key to success. With dedicated templates, you can boost productivity, and ensure precision in goal achievement. Just like the goal of organic ranking in content creation, this app becomes your strategic ally for efficient planning.
To get backlinks
Link building is another very vital aspect for gaining ground in content marketing. The more links you have to show in your repertoire, the better your domain authority and even more are your chances of achieving a higher rank in the SERPs amongst other benefits.
Before you start searching for productive links, first, see if you own some linkable assets because those will be your leverages. These are some of the qualities a linkable asset should possess:
Ring any bells?
These are nothing but aspects of any high-quality content should have!
So to correlate the two, high-quality content is a must-have to build quality backlinks.
For educational purposes
Content made online almost always has a marketing motive behind it. Achieving some goals remain the sole focus of the marketer.
But sometimes, the purpose of a piece of content is to inform. That's it.
If there is any collateral profit from the content, that is well and good, but the primary purpose of the content should be to educate the audience.
This is an important practice because addressing the audience from every level in the sales funnel is necessary to move potential leads from the top of the funnel and convert them into customers at the bottom.
We hope you have an idea of what quality content means. So be sure about your goals before start creating all kinds of content.
But we are not done yet just yet.
It's time we gave you some essential pointers which you must follow if you want to create quality content every time.
Tips to remember for creating high-quality content
Outline your content marketing goals
As we had mentioned in the previous section, defining a purpose is crucial before creating. So keep in mind which objective you want to go after. Center your content creation on that objective.
The AIDA model provides an excellent framework if you are looking for some clarity to define your objectives.
These goals can be anything, from getting more traffic, gathering quality leads, having sign-ups, brand awareness, trials, conversions, and many more.
And deciding the aim of your content after creating it is never a good idea. Your content will be productive to you only when it is aligned with the whole of your marketing strategy.
Write for the user, never the search engine
Admittedly, we are running businesses, so we likely chase after profits. Search engine rankings and backlinks are all we can think about when the tough competition drives us crazy.
But have you ever thought about why "content quality is king?"
It's because it is to be created for the sole purpose of being beneficial for readers. Yes, you read that right. If this opinion doesn't make sense, then you won't ever be able to provide value to your customers.
If you don't believe us, read Google's quality guidelines. "People first" has always been their stance. Sneaky tricks to boost your SEO should be done within the ethical bounds set by Google. Still, the main focus of writing and publishing content should always be about being helpful and valuable to users.
Google's guidelines don't prohibit one from involving in any optimizing practices. But they should be based on one's ability to differentiate them from the competitors.
Know the search intent of the keywords you use
When you are doing your keyword research, which you surely do before writing your content, do closely monitor the searcher's intent. That'll help you carve your content and include everything the reader is looking for.
Google gives a lot of priority to the fact that a ranking piece of content holds all the relevant information being searched for. If you are providing it all to the visitor, it immensely affects your content's ranking.
So what you have got to do is, after identifying your keywords, put yourself in the searcher's shoes. There is no other way to get their purpose for entering those words in the search field.
For example, a person is searching and exploring social media management tools with a query, "what are social media management tools?". For them, you must write articles about the basics of such tools.
You can't give them a list of such tools when they don't even have a necessary idea about the subject!
Now suppose the same person searches for "best social media management tools" after gaining the necessary idea about the topic, you can then pitch content that gives them options to choose from.
You see how the user's intent changed down the line, even if they used similar and related keywords!
Keep your language simple and comprehensive
A lot of writers believe that sophisticated language can impress readers and make anything they write into high-quality content. You can't be any further than the truth.
Flowery language belongs in literature essays and novels. It won't earn you any brownie points from readers or the SEO.
The content we make online is to help readers to make their jobs easier. And keeping your language easy to grasp does just that. So make sure not to put in a lot of complex sentences and difficult words.
Keep the flow of the piece conversational, even humorous at places. This puts readers in a comfort zone. They should feel like they are having a conversation rather than going through an article.
You can use the bucket brigade style to add a little flair and fun to your piece, even if your chosen topic is not very entertaining.
See to the structuring of your content
Imagine you have written some flawless content that is perfect in every way, but still, visitors are not staying long enough on the page to read through the whole piece.
What might be the reason?
One major cause of this might be coming across as visually monotonous or text-heavy.
This can happen when you have yet to put much thought into the structuring of the piece. If there is paragraph after paragraph, longer than 5-6 lines stacked up, one after another, the subconscious of many readers will pause even before they begin reading.
Even if you have made the article effective and informative, more is needed to hold a person.
You have to make the flow of your content so that it comes across as easily scannable and not as densely packed.
There are a few tricks you could use to do this:
- Make a paragraph at most 1-2 sentences long.
- Highlight important points with bold and italic fonts.
- Section off your content into subheadings.
- Use bullet points to make lists rather than long paragraphs.
- Use visual elements like images, infographics, and embedded videos to provide visual breaks in the content flow.
Show credibility
To build any semblance of trust, you must keep any hint of promotional aspects in your content to a bare minimum. Developing quality content is not advertising in nature. Keep it as unbiased as possible.
And there is no way you can fool your readers. They have an eagle eye and detect when authentic content shifts course and becomes marketing.
The authority in your content will only show when you provide value with reliable information. So cite primary data sources and quotes from industry experts, and refer to reports and surveys using authentic links whenever possible.
This definitely boosts the readers' confidence in you and makes you a trustworthy resource that has provided value to them.
Use the potential of social media
You might be sure about your high-quality content and the organic traffic it brings in, but won't you give it that extra boost if you can?
And that can be done pretty easily too. Through social media, of course!
There are numerous social media platforms for you to promote your content. And you cannot refute the effectiveness of the networks because social media sells.
It gets challenging for content marketers now a day to survive the competition if they keep themselves bound to their domain only. You have got to show off your content to the world. And if you are lucky enough to reach the right audience, your online exposure will make your content immensely successful.
Regular updates are necessary
Facts and figures keep changing daily. So to give your readers correct information, you have to daily update your content.
From statistical data to changed website URLs and names, any of these might need an update. It might not even be about updating facts. You may add new entries to a list or improve the language, or tweak keywords.
Making any content changes alerts the web crawlers to crawl your page again, which is always great from an SEO perspective.
So make a schedule to update your previous content and follow it religiously. Because experienced content marketers would tell you that creating new content might be essential but updating your pre-existing content is even more crucial for your standing online.
These are some tips you must always be aware of to successfully make high-quality content. The more you explore the realm of content and keep up with the performance metrics, the better you will be able to understand what works best for you.
Here's a few quick pro tips.
- Make your headline catchy
- Do thorough research before writing your piece
- Use as many visual elements as needed
- Use your keywords in the title and subtitles
- Put the most essential sections sooner in the content
- Create a table of contents
High Quality Content Examples
Now you know what makes content top notch, here are ten great examples to inspire you to start writing your content.
Now you know what makes content top notch, here are ten great examples of blog styles to inspire you with your content.
1. Tutorials and How-to guides
Tutorials and how-to guides are exactly as they sound.
They are guides that are usually written in chronological order, with defined steps to achieve a specific task or goal.
Tutorials and How-to guides can either be extensively detailed or byte-sized. Depending on your preferred style and tone, either can prove effective.
Tutorials are extremely valuable, especially with people turning almost solely on the internet to find answers and solutions.
If you have any knowledge on specific topics that you can help people on, take advantage of this and share how people can do the same. Whether it’s from cooking down to programming, sharing a guide on how to do things is a great way to get powerful leads.
The more you get recognized and credibility on your tutorials, the more you can get readers to support you.
2. Interviews
Interviews are a great way to gather expert advice from someone else instead of researching your content.
Conducting an interview with a blogger, influencer, customer, or any person relevant to your topic can create a sense of credibility to your article. Not only do you get the information you need, but it also provides new insight and perspective to your chosen topic.
This is also a great opportunity to gather new readers to your article, especially if your chosen interviewee has an established presence or popularity.
3. Guest blogging
Speaking of presence and popularity, guest blogging can also provide you similar opportunities to interview articles. The difference is guest blogging will allow someone else to write an article or blog for your website.
The chosen guest blogger is also usually an expert on the topic or someone relevant enough to your topic to share their fresh perspective on it.
Similar to interviews, this allows you to connect with new potential audiences, adds credibility, and can increase overall traffic to your site.
As your guest blogger will have control over their content, ensure that they have the information they need to create an article that fits your blog or website.
4. Industry Research/Surveys and Data Driven Studies
If you’re into hard data, facts, statistics and numbers, this type of blog article may be for you.
Creating articles on data, research, and surveys is an effective way to provide new knowledge backed up by detailed information. Collect the best, most credible, and up-to-date sources and talk about it.
Remember that you cannot just compile data and cramp it into one article. It’s essential to create an angle, a possible fresh perspective and interpretation of the data, or simplify the data and extract a conclusion from it.
Another benefit of this will be earning backlinks. Backlinks are created when you reference and add links from other sites or when other sites link you as a source, giving you referral traffic from other sites. This means other sites start referencing your data and articles as well, increasing your overall discoverability. You also become more favorable to search engines (this is not always a guarantee, though).
Backlinks are not solely exclusive to this type of blog, but there is definitely more opportunity for backlinks here.
There are many more factors that go into backlinks such as topical relevance, authority of backlinks, and more - so make sure you research and take advantage of it!
5. Expert roundups
Expert roundups work similar to guest and interview style blogs, but instead are a compilation of experts who weigh in on a topic and share their perspective on it.
It produces a similar effect where the credibility of your blog article post is strengthened, and provides you the opportunity to expand your network and audiences. Like industry research and data driven studies, it also provides you a chance to create more backlinks to your article. The idea is simple: if an industry expert contributes to your article, they will probably be inclined to link and share your article as well. This is again, good for SEO.
Do remember that in order to create an effective expert roundup blog, you will first have to find the appropriate experts to create quality content, and most importantly, ask the right questions.
6. Personal stories
Beyond just interviews and gathering outside opinions, personal stories can work great especially if your experiences are unique and interesting.
If you find yourself a good and engaging storyteller, take advantage of this! Connecting to your reader on an emotional level is a skill of its own, and can also create a strong following if you captivate the right audience.
Your story does not need to be a deep one - it can also be a journey towards things you’re actively working on, things you are interested in, among others.
You’ve probably seen many of these. Food, fitness, family, travel, and even mental health or personal development blogs are just some of the personal blogs you can find today. Today, people value transparency and honesty, and if they find ways to relate to you, it can acquire you a following, and in the long run a strong personal online presence.
Note however, that these types of blogs are rarely picked up by search engines, and so you will need to find a good balance in optimizing your content for SEO while still providing authentic stories.
7. Latest industry news and current events
There’s nothing like riding on current events to really get people clicking on your blog.
You’ve probably heard of blogs like the HuffPost, TechCrunch, Mashable, or Washington Post.
These are all blogs that cover the latest news happening around the world, technology, video, culture, entertainment, business, and more.
Some of the benefits of covering news and current events allow you to already search about what’s happening when writing about it.
Since your blog post will include hot topics, your post becomes a strong candidate for what readers will look out for online.
You can also consider having a niche topic, such as technology, or pop culture. If you can also generate interest from readers with a unique way to cover the story, you can stand out among the sea of other news blogs.
8 .Case studies
Case studies give focus to a particular condition, problem, or situation and creates recommendations and implements these to come up with an optimal result. Why do bloggers need to know how to write a case study, you may ask?
Depending on your goals in writing your blog, case studies can be an effective way to market yourself or a potential client that you can produce the results you want.
If you’re blogging about your products or services, a case study is a powerful method that can illustrate how you can solve a problem, or show clients the value of your product.
Usually, your case study will have a minimum of four sections including your introduction, background, rationale, and presentation of your data with a conclusion.
Here is an example: Ahrefs blog deleted 49% of their blog posts and ended up increasing traffic to their blog.They provided details in their original case study to present how they did it.
They effectively illustrated a strategy they came up with, presenting the introduction of what problem they tried to solve, what their approach was (which they coined ‘the middleman’ method), and concrete steps they took in applying this method. At the end, you will find the results of their strategy with final thoughts and a conclusion.
This blog provided detail on SEO strategy, while also proving that they know what they’re talking about, with evidence to match.
Making case studies will require some level of research, work, and experiment, but even if you come up with a negative result, this can still prove to be substantial information to write in your blog about. It’s up to you to decide.
9. Listicles and Checklists
With a plethora of information at everyone’s disposal, listicles and checklists are one of the things readers look out for - simple and digestible ways to learn about new things.
Listicle is a portmanteau derived from list and article, while checklists are just that.
Good listicles and checklists will have a structured list or outline summarizing a main topic like, “10 Instagram Influencer Marketing Strategies”. It’s an excellent way to make overwhelming topics feel less complex. Readers will feel they have time to go through your article and even skip portions that they may be familiar with already. These are also very shareable on social media.
Cheat sheets are another way to approach listicles, with your outline angled almost like a tutorial or how-to style blog.
Of course, ensure that your chosen content fits a list-format and is ordered logically if you will number each point. When writing your listicle, add details to support your main points with more in-depth information.
Reviews and comparison posts may fall under listicles if you cover different products and compare them, so know the type of blog style you want that suits the goal of your article.
10. Tech enabled content
Tech enabled content leverages one of our most valuable resources today: technology. Using existing technology, platforms, and frameworks, your blog can provide solutions to your everyday writer and reader.
A good example would be a headline generator: your website or blog can be dedicated to a certain technology tool, and from there you produce related content that can push the promotion of your technology. Take Seopressor.com: they have a blog title generator you can use, but their website automatically links you to their blog that focuses on creating catchy headlines, copywriting, SEO strategies, and more.
If you have the means to create new tech in your blog, leverage this and incorporate it to your blog content!
These blog examples are not the only ones available. You can even mix up your blog writing style to create a variety of ways to write your niche content.
All these strategies are at your disposal, and it’s up to you to find out what works for your audience, your writing style, and your blog content.
There are endless possibilities - so get your blog going, and start writing!
Wrapping up
The standards of high-quality content have changed a lot over the years. Previously, marketers concentrated on just creating content in bulk, hoping that some of them would definitely rank. But because of the stringent practices of search engines, the quality over quantity principle is being adopted everywhere.
You have to go through a whole process to create any content. From defining your own goals, identifying the audience's needs, and keyword research to shaping up a piece, publishing and updating it from time to time, and optimizing it from an SEO point of view
It's a really long journey, and enough time and resources are invested.
And if you do all of it diligently and the right way, you get assets that keep on giving long-term returns. That is the power of high-quality content.
Just remember, as any wise marketer would, a good piece of content is for your audience, to help them, benefit them, educate and inform them. Every other purpose is secondary. If the motive of creating quality content is centered around answering relevant questions, you can never go wrong with your content strategy.
17 mins read
