Why Producing High-Quality Content Matters for Your Business
Every single day, in only 24 hours, 7 million individual blog posts are published on the internet. As an online business, these posts become our competition. If we’re not ranking at number 1, someone else is. While most of those articles won’t ever see the light of day, the ones that do all have one thing in common – they are all high-quality content.
Quality content is what sets apart articles that rank at the top of Google and the ones that never make it to the first page. No matter what industry you’re in, content is king. Beyond that, quality content is the whole kingdom.
In this article, we’ll dive into the need for quality content, demonstrating exactly why it should be the crown jewel of your content marketing strategy.
Let’s jump right into it.
What Does Quality Content Look Like?
Quality content will vary depending on the niche that your business operates in. For one business, a well-structured report that includes a range of statistics is the pinnacle of high quality. In another, a clear and concise thought piece could be the winning ticket.
Despite content differences, there are a few markers of quality content that you should watch out for. Across all content styles and structures, quality content will show:
- Value – Quality content always allows users to take something away from it. That could be new information, a guide that helps them achieve something or just something to consider going forward. All engaging content provides value to the reader.
- Relevance – When creating online content, the entirety of the post should be closely related to the central topic. Don’t go off on a tangent – stick to what’s important and deliver value to your audience.
- Originality – One aspect of quality content that is continually overlooked is originality. Now, we’re not suggesting that you reinvent the wheel here. But, pulling together sources and putting them into conversation in a unique way can result in highly useful and authentic content.
- Consistency – Quality content isn’t just a one-off article. It’s a consistent approach and devotion to cultivating an online space that affords your readers an unmatched online experience.
While structure, presentation, and writing style will vary, the four characteristics above are always found in all quality content.
Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign – Jon Buscall, Head of Moondog Marketing.
Why is Content Marketing Important? – Why Quality Content Matters
Quality content is the heart of an effective content marketing strategy. No matter how well you market your content, if the writing itself is thin or boring, you won’t get very far. Considering that 92% of B2B businesses use content marketing, there’s clearly something to be said about this strategy.
Once you’ve forged a content marketing strategy plan, the next step is to start writing content. The better that content is, the better received it’ll be by your audience. Once you start winning over your target demographic with educational content, you’ll start to pull in leads at an accelerated rate.
Beyond just generating leads, there are many benefits of content marketing with quality content:
- Build Organic Traffic
- Increase Brand Visibility
- Cultivate a Trusting Audience
Let’s break these down further.
Build Organic Traffic
Content marketing allows you to increase the rate at which you produce digital content. Most of the time, that content will take the form of blog posts. However, you could also make podcasts, videos, infographics, you name it. The key is making sure that you produce high-quality content across all of your various formats.
As you start to consistently create content, you’ll naturally start to rank better on Google. Part of this is due to the content itself, with SEO elements being woven throughout. Another part is that consistent, high-quality posts will increase your brand’s relative Google EAT score.
This acronym is an internal metric that determines the quality of your website as a whole. By continually posting high-quality content, you’re proving your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness all at the same time.
With the combined efforts of your search-engine-optimized content and your increasing online prevalence, you’ll start to rank higher in the SERPs. According to Bacnklinko, only 0.78% of clicks go to content on the second page of Google.
The higher up we can push toward that #1 ranking spot, the more organic traffic we’ll start to generate. From there, our content will drive sales with ease.
Increase Brand Visibility
Younger companies continually struggle with brand awareness and visibility. Without large social media followings or natural traffic from a blog, it can be hard to let the world know that you’re out there. Content marketing definitely isn’t an overnight solution. An article you upload today won’t be indexed for a few months and won’t rank for at six months+.
Especially if you’re in a competitive space like eCommerce, people might not find your brand for quite some time. Content marketing allows you to slowly build up an audience. By creating quality posts and sharing them across all your social channels, you’ll be able to expose more people to your brand.
Over time, people will recognize you for your educational content. Due to this, your quality content serves as a gateway toward acquiring new leads and securing sales. We’re not saying it’ll be quick, but it’ll definitely be worth it.
If you’re looking for a platform that will help you plan out your content marketing campaigns, then ClickUp is the app for you. With free training, 100+ customizable features, and a very reasonable price tag, this platform will supercharge your project management strategy.
Cultivate a Trusting Audience
Trust is not an easy thing to come by in the world of online business. You could have the best brand story in the world, a beautiful website, and great products, but that doesn’t mean people are going to trust you.
Like most things in marketing, trust is earnt over time. This isn’t something that you can pay a few PPC campaigns to solve for you. Trust in the world of marketing comes from giving your audience something they can use as often as possible. The quality content that you produce and publish on your blog is completely free for the public to browse and take information away from.
By continually providing free, high-quality, and educational content, you’re able to show your audience that you’re there to support them. Instead of just seeming like a money-hungry business, you show that you’re providing advice free of charge. Over time, this can help you to win public attention and, more importantly, the trust of your consumers.
If you want a hand in writing and designing graphics for your quality content, then we recommend Upwork as a platform for outsourcing. 49% of companies use outsourcing for their content creation needs, with this platform being one of the best there is to find top talent.
Content marketing provides 4x the ROI of our traditional marketing spend.
– Julie Fleischer, VP of Marketing at Neustar
How Does Google’s Helpful Content Update Impact the Need for Engaging Content?
For decades, many of Google’s algorithm updates have tried to move away from SEO above all else. While SEO will always come into ranking as a core factor, the most recent Helpful Content update has been one of the most revolutionary to date in changing this.
Instead of promoting articles that have the best distribution of keywords or the strongest on-page SEO, Google is now attempting to siphon out thin content. Any blog pages that are full of fluff content or touch on non-relevant content will lose their ranking. Due to this, content writers need to focus on creating quality content above all else.
SEO isn’t going anywhere. However, our number one priority should always be writing content that is genuinely useful to our audience. In light of the Helpful Content Audience, quality is now the most important ranking factor.
Write for humans, not for search engines.
What helps people, helps business.
– Leo Burnett
Final Thoughts on Writing Quality Content for Your Business
Writing quality content has always been an important factor in producing high-impact content marketing campaigns. The utility, depth, and knowledge that your content communicates should be a priority.
Especially after Google’s most recent algorithm change, we’re going to be seeing a lot more importance placed on these factors. If you want to move to the top of the Google rankings, it’s time to take quality content seriously.
