The Power Of Quality Content

 

Content is good, but not all content is created equal. Find your content “unicorns” and turn them into your main traffic driver.

WHAT IS QUALITY CONTENT?

 

Quality content can give Google and potential customers’ faith in your brand. But what is “quality content?”  Quality content meets or exceeds your audience’s expectations by helping them solve a problem. Types of quality content include blog/articles, videos, infographics, graphs, white papers and much more. Some say that a piece of contents quality is defined by its length (number of words for an article), structure, the keywords it contains or visuals it comes with, but really there is just one goal you must meet: your customers must love it.

 

WHY IS QUALITY CONTENT IMPORTANT?

 

According to the Havas Group Meaningful Brands study, 84% of people expect brands to provide content that entertains, tells stories, provides solutions, and creates experiences. This keeps users engaged, coming back to your website or social media, and moving down your sales funnel. Good content helps reduce the bounce rate and increases factors such as time spent on page and page/session. Google takes all of this into account when ranking your site.

 

Illustration of a quality lead

THE SECRET TO CREATING HIGH QUALITY CONTENT

 

In reality, not all content will be high quality. Wordstream classifies content into unicorns and donkeys. The unicorns are the few high performing stories, while the Donkeys make up the rest. There are some amazing tools out there that can help us see what content is working and what is likely to work. Then, we need to test, test, test.

Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and Google Ads are some of the tools you can use to identify your unicorn content.

  • In Google Analytics, seeing a large amount of page visitors, with a longer average time on page and high goal completions are indicators for good content. To access these metrics, simply go to your Google Analytics account > Behaviour > Overview.
  • Facebook Page Insights shows all types of engagement on your page. By seeing and sticking to what resonates with your audience (in terms of shared images, videos, links and text), you will get closer to consistently creating content that your audience loves. Go to your page > “Manage Page” > “Insights”.
  • If you’re using Google Ads, check which search terms people are using to get to your website. The number of clicks and conversions for each search term will show you if your audience responds well to it. In Google Ads, go into “Keywords” > “Search Terms”. (Read the difference between a search term and a search keyword here.)
  • Keyword analysis can be used to identify what works best and to find new topic ideas that people are actively searching for. Try Ubbersuggest or the Keyword Surfer Chrome extension. Another way to get your hands on trendy topics: Google Trends
Illustration of a user reading quality content

Good content is rare and high quality content isn’t created in just a minute. But, with a little research there are ways to make sure your content is on the right track. In a nutshell, the recipe for creating good content is:

  • Strategy and Structure: before diving into the writing of your content, make sure you have a solid, logical strategy that helps you organise what topics to write about and guides you in its creation. Use your data, do your research, and create a content plan.
  • Passion: yes, it needs to sound professional, yes it needs to include information, but it can still be entertaining! You, dear business owner, ARE passionate about your business or you wouldn’t be doing it. Show that passion! Write like you’re explaining the content to a friend you haven’t seen in a while, and then add the sales-y bits (like CONTACT US) in as a call to action.
  • Information: Include as many facts, data, insights and visuals as you can, as long as they are relevant to your topic and audience.
  • Check the data of previous posts, and try create content based off your highest performing content.

QUALITY CONTENT IN ADS

Did you know that Google ACTUALLY checks your website content when you create ads with them!? This helps determines your ad rank, cost per click and much more. Try all you like, but a bad website means poor advertising results.

The best way to please Google is to use the same wording, tone of voice and keywords in your ads and on your website. That way, the Search Engine knows that your content is relevant in your domain/ niche and will promote it more easily.

As you can see below, in Google’s Ad Manager Help, it is the first point under “Best practices for ad traffic quality

Google's "best practices for ad traffic quality"

To sum it up, a recipe for success is: “quality content on website + quality content in ads = best basis for reaching a quality audience and retaining it. ”

The internet is full of content but quality content sticks out. Try out our techniques to spot the trends and let your creativity speak. Your customers will love it.

For more “in depth” work on your website and how to make Google like it, check out our tips for a search engine friendly website.

Get in touch if you have any questions or need help with your digital marketing.

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