High-quality website and blog content builds brand awareness, and turns website visitors into customers and referral sources. The 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks report shows that 96% of the most successful content marketers strongly believe that their organization’s credibility has increased because of high-quality content.
Below is a list of some of the elements that constitute a high-quality blog post. If you follow this checklist, you are well on your way to creating quality blog content.
The Content is Aligned With Brand Objectives
Our objective in creating this blog post is to establish ourselves as experts on content marketing, SEO and brand development. If this article does not at least partially support this objective, than it is not high quality. Having a one-on-one conversation with the website visitor that helps that visitor to better understand the subject matter at hand is the objective. To have organized and well written content will further help to achieve that goal.
The Content is Designed to Provide Solutions
High-quality content solves specific problems and offers actionable advice that the readers can apply to their situation. In our case, many of the solutions require technical expertise that most of our customers do not possess, but it is still comforting to know that there is a resource or a procedure available for solving a problem.
The Content Shares Specific Tools To Solve The Problem
Useful content provides resources to solve problems. For example, we often cite resources like SEMRush, Ahrefs.com, and Google Search Console that help to provide solutions for various SEO problems ranging from backlinks to keyword research to on page SEO techniques. The point is that you should not be shy about providing the sources of your solutions. That is what makes your blog content unique and valuable.
The Content Should Be Easy To Read.
A study by the Nielsen Group found that 79% of website users scan the content on a webpage for highlighted headings. In fact, the study shows only 16% of users read the content word for word. Use highlighted headings, keep the content brief and to the point, and use graphs and illustrations to explain complicated concepts or conclusions that require a lot of data to support. Use language that is conversational and easy to understand, even when explaining technical subject matter.
Conclusion: Keep It Simple
Creating high-quality content is not complicated. The key is to have a firm understanding of the topic that you are writing about, and explain it as if you are talking to a friend who is not in your industry, or better yet, explain it like you are speaking to a new customer of your firm. If your discussion covers the problem at hand and provides the theory and assets necessary to create a solution, then you have satisfied most definitions of high-quality content.
Eric Van Cleave is the CEO and Digital Director for Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa California Digital Marketing and SEO Agency.