How do you evaluate the quality of a content and how can you write qualitatively superior content to your competitors? Some fundamental aspects cannot be overlooked. Their absence can have even more negative effects than the second page of Google: a site could get to have a bad online reputation and could spoil the image of those who took time, effort and commitment to build it.
So here is a short guide that will help you understand what quality is and how to create valuable content for search engines and above all for users.
1. What Does This Factor Represent For Google?
Who writes for the web knows it well: positioning yourself on the second page of Google is a bit like “ending up in the last row of a shelf at the supermarket”. Few notice that product, because everyone stops at the first. For this reason, it is important to have a clear idea of the criteria by which Google evaluates it when it comes to content quality. The Mountain View giant released, last July, an update of the guidelines of the Quality Raters, or those people who evaluate the quality of the content indexed on the pages of the search engine.
There are 160 enlightening pages full of practical examples that illustrate the concept of content quality for Google. Specifically, the web pages considered to be of quality are those that:
- fully satisfy the purpose for which they were created, through an adequate amount of main content ( Main Content ), which can be supported by supplementary content ( Supplementary Content ) which have the function of improving the user experience;
- they present the right dose of EAT, acronym for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness , that is competence, authority and reliability regarding the topic being treated;
- Have a good reputation through Link Building, not only at the site level but about the authors of the articles: indicating their name is synonymous with credibility, because users can search the web who wrote the content and check if it is an expert or less.
The quality content are also the ones that can give you the answer he was looking for when he typed the query on the search engine. Google also looks at the Mobile Friendly sites with an eye, which guarantee the user the best response to his needs.
Check out: What Value Can a content Writer Add to My Start-up?
2. Quality Content Can Communicate Clearly
A content achieves its purpose if it satisfies the user who finds it: it does so if it can make itself understood. To do this, it must have some basic characteristics:
- It must be written in compliance with the grammar rules. A content must not be designed solely for the search engine, otherwise it risks becoming a text written in “Googlelese” and not in Italian;
- It must be readable content: reading must be simple, immediate and also designed for mobile viewing. The paragraphs must be cohesive and, in the case of citations and data, must always contain the reference to the sources so that the reader can verify their reliability and truthfulness;
- It must be consistent, in the sense that it must know how to establish a link with the reader, through the use of the most appropriate tone of voice, and respect consistency from a communicative perspective.
3. Content Quality And Long Texts: The Differences
The tendency to confuse quality content with long texts is widespread. Some call it “the protocol sheet syndrome” and it consists precisely in the obsession with having to write articles full of text, which often end up boring the reader, leading him astray from what was his initial need or, even worse , increase the bounce rate of the page because they are not satisfactory despite the number of jokes.
Reading quality content is a real experience, which must involve the reader without making it lose along the way. For this reason, the quality of a content is independent of its length. If it is short, but meets all the criteria mentioned so far, it remains a valuable content.
The three C’s
4. The Quality Content also Have The Following characteristics:
- they can be shared and, consequently, those who read them are led to disclose them because they consider them interesting and worthy of consideration by others;
- they are engaging and keep the reader glued to the screen from start to finish;
- They can be quoted and are therefore appreciated by other sites that insert them within their web pages.
5. Produces Added Value
As can be guessed, a quality content is a useful content, which keeps the promise made to the reader in the title and the initial premise, which has a viral potential that can be fueled by word of mouth from users and sharing on social media networks.
The added value it brings is the relationship it manages to establish with the recipient, managing to solve a concrete problem, answer a specific question, entertain, excite and inform in an exhaustive, original, honest way.
