It’s not enough to simply drive website traffic. In order to increase sales and grow your business, you need to attract and engage with the right audience. And if you want to accomplish your goals, you need effective, high-quality content that serves a purpose.
Not all content is created equal: make sure yours is hitting the mark by frequently checking the quality of your website content. In this post, we’ll discuss how to:
- Write comprehensive, user-friendly content.
- Keep content people-first.
- Fact-check and verify claims.
- Logically structure and organize content.
- Proofread and edit before publication.
Why Content Quality Matters
No doubt you know how important SEO is. But a successful SEO strategy involves more than using keywords and adding links. If you want to boost your ranking on SERPs, then you need first-rate website content. If website visitors engage with your content, search engines like Google will recognize it as useful and relevant, which helps improve your overall ranking.
Quality content also increases brand awareness and strengthens your position as an industry authority.
Write Comprehensive, User-Friendly Content
The number-one goal of website content is to provide comprehensive, relevant answers to users’ queries and searches.
For example, if your business sells hiking gear, then your website should leave people feeling like they don’t need to seek out more information from a competing site before making a purchase. Yours should cover everything they need to know – from the different types of equipment and why it’s needed to why you provide the best value for their money.
User-friendly content is informative, clear, and easily digestible. Aim for accessibility by avoiding jargon, confusing acronyms, and technical language. Keep content consistent by implementing your company’s specific style guidelines and brand voice across the entire website, including the landing pages and product descriptions – inconsistency could confuse or frustrate potential customers. And if your audience is focused on distracting tone shifts, then they aren’t taking an action that benefits your business, such as making a purchase or signing up for an email newsletter.
Keep Content People-First
The Google Helpful Content update emphasizes a “people-first” rather than a “search-engine-first” approach to content. What does this mean? The Google algorithm will favor “people-first” content, meaning comprehensive, reliable material that demonstrates subject-matter expertise or firsthand experience. If you write content for the sole purpose of manipulating search engines (for example by keyword stuffing), then it’ll rank lower on results pages.
High-quality content that adds value and a fresh perspective to a topic will also rank higher. That means you should prioritize original, thought-provoking material rather than lots of quickly thrown-together or AI-generated content. AI content can be a great tool for speeding up content production but churning it out on your website without editing could hurt your ranking. This type of content is also much less likely to intrigue your audience or spark a lively discussion in the comments section.
Fact-Check and Verify Claims
The reliability and trustworthiness of your content help determine its quality. Ensure all facts and claims are accurate by thoroughly fact-checking and verifying data and statistics. The sources you’re linking to should be reliable and high-quality, and the authors should be respected in the industry. If you’re linking to an outside blog post, consider the following questions:
- Is the author established in their field?
- Does the article seem biased or sensationalized?
- Is the content relevant to your topic?
- Is the outlet publishing the information reliable?
- Does the outlet provide citations for sources?
It’s especially important to fact-check AI-generated content, as it can include misinformation and inaccuracies because it relies on algorithms to generate content. And if you publish false information, it negatively impacts how potential customers view your business and/or products.
Logically Structure and Organize Content
Quality checking your website is about more than writing – material should be well-structured and organized, as well as clear, concise, and easy to understand. People often want to quickly skim-read a website to determine if it has what they’re looking for, so break content down into manageable, informative chunks and make sure it’s easy to read on a mobile device. When choosing titles for content such as blog posts, pick ones that are compelling and relevant to the topic.
Avoid clickbait titles that don’t deliver what they promise, as this frustrates readers and will likely result in them clicking away from your website. Use concise headings and subheadings to provide a hierarchical structure and make it more coherent and engaging for readers. Incorporating headings can also have SEO benefits since search engines consider them when ranking a website’s relevance.
Overall, prioritizing the structure and organization of your website content enhances user experience and provides a flexible framework that can be adapted to suit evolving business needs.
Proofread and Edit Before Publication
The last step of your quality check should be thoroughly proofreading and editing content. Proofread text for issues such as grammatical errors, typos, and spelling mistakes. These types of issues distract your readers and could negatively impact your reputation. If you publish error-ridden content, customers are less likely to trust your brand or view your business as an authority in the industry.
In addition to a thorough proofread, edit your content for broader issues like consistency, flow, and voice. You should also check that the content:
- Engages the target audience.
- Reads fluently.
- Is persuasive where it needs to be and accomplishes your business objectives.
- Meets your established style guidelines.
- Matches the dialect of your intended audience.
- Effectively and naturally incorporates keywords.
Content Quality Checklist
Use this helpful list of questions to check the quality of your website content:
- Are the data and statistics provided reliable, trustworthy, and up to date?
- Does the content align with your target audience’s interests, needs, and preferences?
- Is the information valuable and informative?
- Is the text easy to read and engaging?
- Is the content directed at people rather than search engines?
- Are headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbered lists used effectively to enhance readability?
- Is the anchor text used for links relevant? Will the reader know what to expect when they click on the link?
- Do embedded links lead to high-quality, dependable sources?
- Are there any spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or inaccuracies?
- Does the content include a clear call to action or next steps for your readers?
Conclusion
Do you want to maximize the effectiveness of your website content and reach more prospective customers? Our editors have experience working with a variety of businesses – from innovative startups to Fortune 500 companies. Schedule a call with our team today to discuss your business’s specific needs.
