How to Create Quality Content

Quality content provides value, connects with the audience, and ideally meets their needs. It improves search engine ranking, builds trust and keeps readers engaged. All of these are essential for an effective online strategy.

Characteristics of Quality Content

Helpful and Relevant

Good content addresses the specific needs of the audience. It answers questions, solves problems, and stays focused on topics that matter to readers. Stay helpful and aim to provide clear and short answers that can be applied easily.

Engaging and Easy to Read

Structure your content with clear headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs, using reiterations only when necessary to reinforce key points. This approach makes content easier to scan and digest, especially for online readers. Adding visuals can also enhance readability and help break up large blocks of text.

Trustworthy and Reliable

Ensure your content is accurate, up-to-date, and well-researched to build reader trust. Use reputable sources, fact-check all information, and cite experts where relevant. If you have credentials or experience in the field, don’t hesitate to highlight them. This adds authority and credibility to your content.

Clear and Practical

Each piece of content should have a clear purpose, whether it’s educating, inspiring, or guiding readers towards something. When readers find practical steps or solutions they can apply immediately, they’re more likely to value and revisit your content.

For example:

• Decision-Making Guidance: Content like “Running Shoes for High Arches” should compare options, list pros and cons, and offer recommendations, helping readers confidently make a choice.
• Educational Content: A guide on “How to learn german” might include actionable steps like creating a daily learning schedule or a guide on how to learn one new german word a day with easy to apply exercises. The goal of such content is to leave readers with tools they can use right away.
• Inspirational Content: An article on “Finding Motivation for Running When It’s Cold Outside” could inspire readers by sharing real experiences and exiting outdoor adventures. This approach not only motivates, but also reframes a challenging activity as enjoyable and rewarding.

Benefits of Quality Content

High-quality content isn’t just beneficial for readers. It’s also essential for your website and search visibility.

• Improved SEO and Visibility: Google prioritises valuable, well-structured content, leading to higher search rankings and increased organic traffic.
• Enhanced Trust and Loyalty: Readers are more likely to return to content that feels reliable and relevant to their needs, fostering brand loyalty.
• Industry Authority: Publishing valuable, trustworthy content helps establish your brand as an industry leader. When you consistently deliver insights, readers see you as an authority.

Google EEAT and Content Quality

Google’s EEAT principles (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) are critical for all content. EEAT helps Google evaluate content quality, focusing on meeting user needs and ensuring information is reliable and accurate.

Industries Requiring High Vigilance on EEAT

Certain types of content are held to higher standard by Google to ensure content accuracy and reliability. These are known as Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics and include:

1. Health and Wellness: Content related to medical advice, wellness trends, mental health, and fitness needs high expertise and authoritative sources. Misleading information in these areas can directly affect users’ health.
2. Financial and Legal: Topics covering investment advice, credit, insurance, taxes, and legal matters fall under YMYL. Inaccuracies can harm users financially, so expertise and credibility are essential.
3. News and Current Events: Content in news, especially regarding politics, safety, and public policy, requires reliability. The news niche is also highly competitive, with many sources vying for visibility, which does make it difficult for new sites to break in.

Industries with More Flexibility

On the other hand, some sectors have more creative freedom regarding EEAT, though quality content still matters. These include:

1. Entertainment and Lifestyle: Areas like fashion, music, movies, travel, and pop culture can adopt a more informal tone. Personal opinions and experiences can enrich content without necessarily adhering to strict authority or trust standards.
2. Creative Arts and DIY: Content focused on crafts, visual arts, and recipes has fewer strict requirements, as these are often subjective and rooted in personal style or preference.

Since these areas are highly visual, content benefits from aesthetically pleasing images and videos.

Tips for Creating Quality Content

1. Write for Your Audience First: While SEO is important, focusing on your audience first ensures you address real needs and interests. Over optimised content can also sound unnatural and clunky.
2. Share Your Insights: Offer fresh perspectives that your audience can’t find elsewhere. Personal experiences, such as examples from projects you’ve worked on, add originality and credibility to your content.
3. Keep it Simple: Use simple language, short sentences and don’t overstuff with jargon. Visuals such as images, charts, or infographics can make complex information more accessible.
4. Align with Search Intent: Different types of content meet different needs. Identify whether the intent is informational, navigational, or transactional and adjust your approach accordingly.
5. Find Content Ideas: Stay relevant by using Google Trends, tracking trending topics on social media, and monitoring audience discussions. You can also explore trends specific to your subject and target country.

Conduct research

1. Use Reliable Resources: Use industry associations, trade bodies, and government agencies to support your content with trustworthy information.
2. Interview Experts: Target field experts for interviews to add authority and depth to your content.
3. Questionnaires: Questionnaires can be an engaging way to connect with your audience through networks like LinkedIn, email, and social media while gathering valuable data on specific topics, offering meaningful insights for your readers.

Using Statistical Resources for Quality Content

Support statements about industry trends, audience behaviours, or market demands with statistics. For instance, citing that “76% of blog content in 2023 consisted of ‘How To’ articles” and linking to a reliable source strengthens your argument.

Find more statistics at Statista

Visualise Data

Visualising data can help readers better understand complex information. For example, a bar chart illustrating search engines’ market shares is easier to interpret than a long list of numbers. Additionally, infographics have strong sharing potential, which can help increase site visitors from referrals and generate valuable backlinks.

Tools like RawGraphs generate customised visualisations such pies, bar charts, tree maps and more.

Fact-Checking

1. Double-check all information from external sources for accuracy and credibility.
2. Use fact-checking tools and validate against multiple sources if possible. Linking to reputable sources also supports SEO.

Conclusion

By focusing on relevance, readability, and reliability, you can create content that builds trust, drives traffic, and establishes authority. Aligning with principles like Google’s EEAT and using the right tools can keep your content at the forefront.