The 6 Elements of Quality Content

As marketers or copywriters, we always set out to write quality content (or at least we should). However, we sometimes forget about the goal of content marketing: to attract readers, to convert them into paying customers or simply to generate more traffic. Whatever your goals, you cannot reach them without quality content. Sure, you can add tons of mediocre content on your website or blog and Google might rank you higher, but this doesn’t mean visitors will spend too much time reading it. So let’s take a look at what gets your content from “meh” to “wow”.

1. Quality Content Is Created for Users, not Search Engines

Of course we all write with keywords in mind, but when it sounds unnatural, users pick up on that. Just because you are the marketer it doesn’t mean that “civilians” don’t know the basics of SEO and can’t catch up on what you are trying to do. And when they do, they feel betrayed and used.

Keep in mind that behind every click there is an actual human who got to your website searching for information, entertainment, business opportunities and so on. Deliver that in a natural way. Write something that “flows” and is not interrupted by aggressive keyword insertion that make the text sound as if it was written by a robot. Oh, and while we’re here: never-ever should you use automatically generated copy. This is not quality content; this is something that clutters the Internet pointlessly and that readers will never appreciate.

2. Quality Content Is Original

Everybody knows that “content is king”, but, sadly, no one moved past this phrase to the truth: “QUALITY content is king”. Most business owners know that having a lot of relevant content on their website can have benefits on their revenue so they try to get it as fast and as cheaply as possible.

Consequently, they hire bulk copywriters that churn tens of articles per day at incredibly low prices. Obviously, nu human could write 10+ articles per day and make them original masterpieces. Instead, they are scraped content, recombined phrases to trick the search engines that the articles are not duplicates. And, technically, they aren’t. But they don’t bring any value or original ideas.

Thus, next time someone offer to fill your website with quality content in a week or less and offers you a near slave labor price for it, run! This is not quality or original content, this is a rewrite of other articles, sometimes even an automated one. Honestly, why should you expect more? You get what you pay for!

If you truly want to commit to having quality content that is original on your website, you should check these three boxes first:

• If you don’t have anything new or useful to say, don’t say it at all
• Quality content can only be written by specialists, so try to hire the best copywriters, not the cheapest
• It takes time for content to produce results, so be patient

3. Quality Content Should Be Actionable

If you have an educational, informative blog, don’t clutter it with tons of references and use excessively specialized lingo. Instead, make it easy for your readers to depict and memorize the takeaways. In other words, create actionable content that teaches people how to apply what they just learned immediately.

Take a look at Idunn’s blog posts.  Most of them are jam-packed with examples and suggestions. Want to learn more about social media for events? This blog posts gives you seven bullet-proof strategies that you can implement right away without being a social media guru. This is just an example to help you understand how high-converting, enticing writing should look like.

After reading an article online, people want to feel like they didn’t waste their time, like they gained something in exchange for the minutes they spent on your website. So give them that something – help them be better professionals, better entrepreneurs, or simply better humans.

4. Quality Content Has Great Headlines

Whether you’re writing a blog post or a landing page, headlines are the most important element. In fact, did you know that 80% of readers only read your headlines; they don’t read the entire text unless something draws their attention. That something is a powerful headline.

Again, make your headlines powerful and actionable. Speak about your target audience’s point of pain. Here’s an example: “Get the exotic holiday you’ve always dreamed of without breaking the bank”. This is something that can attract a broad audience: everyone wants an exotic holiday, but not everyone has the money to pay for it. If you simply advertise the “exotic” factor, most people won’t click because they already know they don’t have the money to spend on it. Add the opportunity for a huge discount and you’ve already got people curious and willing to click.

5. Quality Content Doesn’t Have Fluff

According to Buffer, the ideal length of a blog post is around 1,600 words.  But if you look at other studies, you find that longer content works even better for Google’s algorithms and even for user engagement, so you might be tempted to up your word count to as much as 3,000 words. And that’s quite a lot! In fact, you could write a short white paper within this word count.

So you read the article and you’re tempted to fluff it up until you meet the quota. Or, worse, your boss or client tells you they want 3,000 words on a certain topic and you have to come up with them. Here’s what I do: Google may not like it, but when I set down to write, I never have a word count in mind. I say what I have to say, proofread and cut what seems unessential and then publish. I have blog posts that have a little over 300 words and blog posts that are over 2,000 words. And guess what? It’s not the length that influences the traffic is their subject and the information they contain.

In a nutshell: fluff makes articles hard to digest and, much like aggressive keyword placement, it doesn’t create quality content. If you don’t have much to say on the subject, keep it short and sweet rather than lengthy and boring.

6. Quality Content Requires Commitment

…especially if you want it to amount to anything. Yes, of course, you can write three killer blog posts and that’s it. The fact that you won’t add more doesn’t make those blog posts any worse. What it makes them is a waste of time.

Sporadically updating your blog without a coherent strategy in mind won’t bring you new customers; not even a steady stream of visitors. Web content tends to become obsolete very fast, so you need to “refresh” it constantly. Otherwise, no matter how good your three blog posts, someone else will write similar ones on the same topic and you will be surpassed just because your competitors update their blog more frequently.

This doesn’t mean you should burden yourself with writing tens of articles every day. Instead, create a realistic content calendar and stick to it! You can’t update your blog every day? That’s OK, not everyone is Seth Godin! Do it twice per week or even twice per month, but do it consistently.

Need quality content for your website or blog? You’ve come to the right place