Quality Content Factors: A List that is actually helpful
We are all chasing ‘quality content,’ but what does quality content actually look like? Columnist Nate Dame discovered 20 concrete characteristics of the great content.
Quality Content Factors: A List that is actually helpful
Help the user to complete a specific task
Create content geared toward a clearly defined keyword user intention combination, rather than list of random keywords. Understanding how to discover user intention and organizing that the data, will enable to design content that leads the user quickly and powerfully to his or her next step.
Organize the thematic Subsections
Google fight an against the keyword stuffing has led to smart an algorithm updates that to recognize an authoritative topical content by an identifying keyword synonyms and related terms & phrases.
Help search engines decode the page by identifying the most important related keywords and structuring each into its own subsection.
Make Sure Its ‘Made to Stick’
In Made to Stick why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck, authors Chip and Dan Heath outline framework to identify if an idea is ‘sticky.’
The 6 concepts central to ‘sticky’ content or central to ‘SUCCES’ ask if it is Simple, Credible, Emotional, Unexpected, Concrete, and or uses Stories.
Write a strong title & H1
It can be attractive to get a creative and or clever with titles, but readers do not have time to decode subtleties. Be clear and shorten, and make sure to use tool like Mozs’ Title tag preview tool or Portents’ SERP preview tool, to make sure it is not too long.
Make sure it inspires, educates and or entertains
A combination of 2 or 3 of those qualities is even better, but particularly for starters identify the primary purpose of a content and be faithful to it.
This one has lot to do with titles too; make sure the title and headers set the reader up for the kind of content you are providing.
Ask yourself if want to share It
Great content has intrinsic, spreadable value. Purpose aside, does the content actually speak to you would the people in the social networks, friends and or industry contacts be interested in it.
Make sure it is relevant
Hopefully this does not really need to be said, but I am sure I am not the only one who has been caught off safeguard by clever media, or guest post, that do not seem to have much to do with a brands niche or websites topic.
Do not sacrifice relevancy in an effort to be entertaining.
Write for your audience not for peers
This is special challenge in technical and niche industries. SEO, for ex. written for SEO experts is much different from SEO written for the business owners and traditional marketers.
If the audience is industry professionals, does not talk down to them. If the audience is not familiar with the details of the expertise, does not get fancy and lose them in the technical jargon.
Proofread
It does not matter how long have been doing this, everyone misses keystroke or reverses a characters once in the while.
Double check for ‘spelling and grammatical errors’. Nothing corrodes professionalism and credibility like simple mistake that were too lazy to correct.
Ease up on the primary Keyword
Keyword innards was never good idea, and Panda keeps knocking it down further. Still, lazy writing can lead to unintentional keyword stuffing too, especially in headers.
Once the content is written, do a Command+F or Ctr+F search for the primary keywords to make sure it is not soaking the page. Rewrite or replace with a synonyms as needed.
Fact Check
Click those links one more time and just make sure that a digit didn’t get copied incorrectly, and check the date on any study you are quoting.
Every topic and industry would have different definitions of ‘old,’ but do not quote social media statistics from 2008. This goes for a new and existing content.
Check the analytics periodically, and look for an old content that might still be performing well. Go back to those blog posts and make sure they are up to date.
Clearly define authors on the page
Google Authorship might be thing of past, but author rank is still a factor.
A picture and short bio on every piece of content would give search engines the information they are looking for and improvong the user experience.
Check the alchemy language API
Make sure the Alchemy Language API is identifying an entities, keywords, and concepts as expected.
AlchemyAPI offers great tool that displays what Googles crawlers almost certainly see when examining the website.
Do not send mixed messages
Make sure each page stays on the topic. This ties in with an understanding user intention and creating a unique content to help each intention complete the specific goal.
But if you have not gotten that far, it applies to existing content as well. Do not throw sales pitch in middle of resource content.
Link to good sources
Practicing SEOs know this, of course, but it deserves to be on any of content checklist. Make sure the content links out to reasonable number of trustworthy, high quality sources.
Link Natural Phrases
Make sure those outbound links are using natural phrases. Do not stuff the <a href> with keywords, and do not hyperlink the word(s), ‘here’ or, ‘click here.’
Avoid bad sidebar content
There is reason to believe that supplemental or sidebar content that is useless or off-putting can cause an unfavourable reaction with a certain panda.
Make it visually an appealing
Text on page should be broken up into bite sized pieces: no long paragraphs, use headers constantly, notch quotes, use bullet points for lists, etc.
And make use of an images and video wherever reasonably possible to add color and visual interest.
Offer unique value (Not only just unique content)
Any good writer can rearrange words on page to create content that does not technically appear anywhere else on the internet.
But good content offers unique value by providing readers with an insights and actionable takeaways that no one else does. Does ‘unique value’ sound difficult Well, it is but it, must be done.
Photo credit: SEOPlanter / Foter / CC BY
Quality Content Factors: A List that is actually helpful
