Quality Content: What It Is and 10 Ways to Create It

Content creation is the lifeblood of any business and digital marketing strategy—it’s a top priority for 80% of marketing professionals.

Whether you’re spearheading an SEO strategy to get in front of more prospective customers or building a reputation management strategy to illuminate your good side, you’ve got to have content. It’s the essential communication tool that cultivates connection and trust.

If you’re deciding whether or not to pursue content or just need some validation that your existing content strategy is worth it, this is for you.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the what, why, and how of quality content creation.

What Is Content Creation?

Content creation entails three parts:

• Generating topic ideas that align with your buyer persona.
• Creating written and/or visual content (blog posts, videos, infographics, landing pages, etc.) on those ideas.
• Sharing the content with your target audience via site page, email, social media, etc.

Why Does Content Creation Matter?

When your team commits to the content creation process, you can enjoy three key benefits:

1. Nurtures Meaningful Connections

Creating content allows your team to empathize with your target market. Addressing their pain points, you can offer valuable resources to help them surmount those obstacles.

This can help you earn trust and nurture meaningful connections with those who matter most to your business.

2. Establishes Your Credibility

That’s right—you need good content that engages and educates. The competition is fierce out there. How do you stand out from the crowd?

Consistently producing quality content illustrates your business’ commitment to your products/services and customers. When you provide value, it only enhances your reputation and credibility in your industry.

3. Encourages Traffic and Conversions

Content creation plays a pivotal role in your bottom line in that it can give you a boost in:

• Traffic: Optimizing its landing pages helped software company CORE earn a 20% increase in traffic quarter over quarter and a 1,431% boost in site impressions.
• Conversions: 47% of consumers view three to five content pieces before connecting with a sales rep. Creating the right content equips your audience with the information they need to make educated decisions.

What Differentiates Quality Content from the Pack?

In 2021, Google’s John Mueller explained that high-quality SEO content is more than just text during a Google SEO Office Hours Hangout:

“When it comes to the quality of the content, we don’t mean like just the text of your articles. It’s really the quality of your overall website. And that includes everything from the layout to the design.”

While text content is important, other factors like images, site speed, and site navigation also play a role in the content’s quality. This ties back to Google’s latest update, which seeks to improve the user experience. 

Other key differentiators between subpar and quality content include:

• Comprehensive: Good content covers a subject well without becoming overly wordy.
• Useful: A high-quality piece of content feels relevant and valuable to the reader who searches the topic.
• Educational: Teaching the reader about a particular topic is highly beneficial and can encourage them to share the content with others.
• Accurate: Accuracy is critical when creating content that serves a purpose.

Overall, quality content serves as the best answer to the question searched.

Defining Quality Content

It’s not enough to churn out content; you need to create quality content. Prospective customers respond well to it, so taking the extra time to create quality content helps you achieve your unique business goals.

But what does quality content mean? Quality is subjective, so how can you make content that makes everyone happy?

Google’s Helpful Content Update

When in doubt, ask Google. In August 2022, Google announced its Helpful Content Update and how that would affect current SEO positions. This update is part of Google’s continual effort to create more positive user experiences.

This update highlights the importance of creating people-first content, or content designed for people instead of SEO-focused bots. Google relies on the length of time spent on pages to determine whether the content is helpful.

If you design content focusing only on keywords, people may visit your site but immediately bounce to find something more useful. This behavior issues an alert to Google. Content that offers no value to searchers doesn’t perform well. 

On the other hand, people-first content will keep visitors on your site while encouraging them to read what you produce and even share it with others.

How to Create Quality Content in 10 Ways

We understand this is a lot of information to take in, so we created this list of ten ways to create quality content. Use this information to guide you through the content creation process. 

1. Think About Your Audience

Before starting any content creation, you must consider your audience’s wants. A few questions you can ask include:

• What subjects does your audience seek?
• What keywords do they use?
• How do they like to take in information?
• What are their problems or pain points?
• How can you help them?

Keep your audience in mind when creating content as you determine the layout. Large blocks of text tend to feel overwhelming, so break them up with smaller paragraphs or bullet points.

2. Check Spelling and Grammar

One of the easiest yet most overlooked steps in content creation is reviewing your work before publishing. Having something like: “oh sorRy does tihs not reed well?” instantly lowers the amount of trust a reader is willing to give you.  

Ensuring your spelling and grammar are on par is a must—no excuses. Otherwise, you risk losing trust and credibility early in the customer journey.

3. Focus on Value, Not Promotion

It’s easy to fall into the trap of only focusing on subjects that make promoting your business easier, but that’s not going to help your audience. With each piece of content, teach your audience something. The more value you offer, the better the results. 

4. Establish EAT

When talking about SEO and quality content creation, you’ve probably heard of EAT, which stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Whenever creating content, you should strive to establish EAT.

You can demonstrate your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness by:

• Using data-backed knowledge and references
• Obtaining backlinks
• Getting positive reviews and recommendations
• Creating truthful content
• Offering good information

5.  Be Unique

Creating unique content can be difficult in a world full of information. However, unique content delivers a higher value to the reader. 

Consider sharing personal experiences, stories, or data to enhance the appeal and help your content stand out. Even offering your opinion on established information can help a piece become unique.

6. Use Quality Images

As mentioned before, content isn’t just about text. When including images with your content, make sure they’re clear and well-defined. Quality images show the professionalism that blurry or pixelated photos don’t. 

7. Interpret Information in Different Ways

There are many ways to display information; various methods can help keep the reader’s attention. Instead of just producing blog posts, try creating multimedia content like:

• Screenshots
• Images
• Videos
• Charts/graphs
• Infographics
• Gifs
• Memes

Including different things to look at will make your content instantly more interesting than a piece that consists of walls of text.

8. Check Site Speed

If you notice an increase in bounce rates, it’s time to check your site speed. If your site isn’t optimized, it takes longer to load. 

The longer a site takes to load, the less likely someone will stay, especially when they have other choices. Use PageSpeed Insights to explore how well your site is running.

9. Review Site Navigation

Ease of navigation is another critical factor in content quality, as it plays a role in the user experience. When considering whether your site is easy to navigate, ask the following questions:

• Are all pages properly labeled? 
• Can someone who knows nothing about you find your service pages? 
• Do you have an About Us page?

If you can answer “yes” to each question, your navigation should align with your content efforts. 

10. Target Long-Tail Keywords

Keywords are crucial in content creation, as they allow searchers to find what you produce. However, some keywords rank higher than others. Long-tail keywords, or longer and more specific phrases, often deliver higher conversion rates than short keywords.

Establish and Track Metrics to Know If Your Content Is Working

It’s vital to ensure your content and topics deliver the right results. Measuring the success of your content will let you know whether your content efforts are working and what kind of adjustments to employ.

Here are a few example metrics that can help your team assess how valuable and engaging your content is:

• Pageviews: How many views has your content received?
• Average time on page: How long are users hanging out on your content page? Are they reading/viewing your content?
• Returning visitors: Are people coming back for more content?
• Conversion rates: Are users taking the action you want them to take upon viewing your content?

There are reliable content creation tools out there that can help you track your campaigns. This digital marketing toolkit has all the details.

Keep It Fresh

New content helps target new or revised keywords and share company-related updates. Put out new content when appropriate, such as highlighting changes in your industry, sharing relevant news stories, and providing company updates. 

Leverage the Expertise of a Qualified Content Marketing Team

Need a hand with your content strategy? Our qualified team of content marketing specialists is here to help. Contact our team today and find out if we’re a good fit for you!

In the meantime, get acquainted with the various content marketing tactics that can help you bolster your competitive edge.