In today's digital landscape, users have access to a constant barrage of new content. From short-form videos to long-form white papers, there's always something new to consume. As a business owner, it can feel nearly impossible to stand out against the competition and keep a potential customer engaged.
If you've struggled to carve out your place in digital marketing, it's time to start thinking about your content quality. It's not just a matter of creating new content, but creating high quality content that delivers relevant, reliable information in an engaging format.
Ready to learn more about quality content? Read on to learn about content quality, why it matters, and how to improve yours.
What is quality content?
Quality content is content that drives value and is aligned with both business and customer goals. Key features of quality content include:
- Highly relevant: Quality content includes relevant topics for your target audience. It should answer their questions and provide valuable insights.
- Accurate: This content should be well-researched using trustworthy sources and demonstrate a deep understanding of the subject matter. In some cases, it can be helpful to site sources, too.
- Engaging: No matter the subject, quality content should be engaging for the user and provide actionable information.
- SEO-optimized: In order for users to find your content, SEO optimization is a must. That said, make sure your SEO isn't spammy. Use relevant keywords and avoid keyword stuffing.
Types of content that support a quality-first strategy
While all content should be high-quality, it's particularly important to create quality content in the following content types:
- Blog posts: Blog posts are a treasure trove for SEO rankings, but quality content's important there, too. Perform thorough keyword research, then aim to create relevant and informative content with your target keywords.
- Videos: High quality content is important for both short-form and long-form video content. Everything from 30-second clips to informative video essays provide new opportunities for you to get in front of your intended audience.
- Infographics: Boost your infographics' relevance by including useful information for your target audience and making them clear and easy to understand.
- Case studies: Case studies should be well-researched using up-to-date information from recent studies. Review case studies regularly and update based on new research or findings.
- Ebooks: Ebooks are effective lead magnets and may be a prospective customer's first impression of your brand, so focus on creating content that's accurate and informative.
- Social media posts: Whether posted on LinkedIn or TikTok, high quality content can increase visibility and build trust.
- Email newsletters: Informative emails are a great way to prove that your business is valuable to customers. Focus on not only promoting your services, but providing useful information that betters your customers' lives.
- Webinars: A well-researched and thorough webinar is an excellent way to prove expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
How content has evolved in modern marketing
Over the past few decades, content in modern marketing has undergone a number of dramatic shifts. At the turn of the 21st century, traditional advertising was king. Today, content-driven experiences rule the marketing world. Thanks to inbound marketing, content is now a central brand asset that attracts, nurtures, and retains audiences over time.
Search engine algorithms have also had a massive impact on content in modern marketing. Early SEO looked to relevant keywords and cared little about content quality. This resulted in an internet full of poorly written content ripe with keyword stuffing. Today, search engine algorithms favor E-E-A-T, experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, and easily spot and demote low quality content. In response, today's marketers focus more on creating high quality content that meets user intent and offers value, rather than keyword frequency.
The newest frontier in the world of content marketing is Artificial Intelligence. AI is rapidly changing how content is created, optimized, and distributed. AI tools assist with ideation, outlines, editing, and personalization, helping teams produce content more efficiently than ever. Still quality, trust, and intent remain the North Star.
Key reasons why valuable content matters
It's clear that valuable content matters—but why? Read on to learn the benefits of high quality content.
Builds trust and authority
In just about every industry, today's customer has many choices. In order to stand out, brands need to position themselves as authority figures in their fields. High quality content is a surefire way to do so. It improves brand credibility and shows potential customers that you are a leading expert in your field, a clear trust signal.
Improves SEO performance
People aren't the only ones searching for high quality content; search engines are, too. Generating quality content that shows E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) will improve your search engine rankings and get more eyes on your business.
Drives better engagement and conversions
Through quality content, you can better engage your customer base. People are more likely to click on information that's relevant, trustworthy, and informative—and they're more likely to keep coming back for more. The more people who engage with your content, the higher likelihood of driving a sale.
Supports every stage of the marketing funnel
High quality content is the top of your marketing funnel. By creating high quality content, you can both attract the right people to your business and move them further down the funnel.
That said, your top-of-the-funnel audience isn't the only group to focus on producing high quality content for. Create engaging and valuable content that speaks to your customers at every stage of the customer journey.
Fuels other marketing channels
When you create quality content, you also fuel all other marketing channels. Good content quality can encourage potential customers to follow you on social media, sign up for your email list, and more. Once they do so, you've established a direct line of communication
How to create quality content
Ready to boost your content quality? Follow these steps to create high quality content that furthers your business goals.
Understand your audience and their needs
Creating content that's relevant to your intended audience begins with a deep understanding of who your audience is and what they need. Take time to perform thorough research on your existing audience and competitors' audiences to better understand their desires, pain points, and goals.
Invest in strong writing, visuals, and editing
Quality content isn't just about including accurate and relevant information, but doing so in a way that's clear, engaging, and easy-to-digest. Your content team should be the cream of the crop, whether writers, designers, videographers, or editors.
Prioritize originality and usefulness
It's not enough to regurgitate existing content. Focus on creating content with original research and unique insights to stand out from competitors. Users don't just want accurate information, but new information, too.
Use data and feedback to iterate and improve
There are a number of ways to collect data and feedback on your content. Quantitative KPIs like clicks, open rates, and downloads can help gauge the value of your content, while conversions can help you get a better understanding of which content types furthered your business goals. Use this information to inform your content strategy moving forward.
Ensure consistency in tone, voice, and format
No matter what type of content you generate, it should always sound like your brand. In addition to being well written, your content should reflect your voice and tone, too.
Keep with the rise of rich media
These days, digital content has strayed from white papers and blog articles to rich media assets, like video content, animation, and interactive elements that boost user engagement. Stay up to date on these media types and incorporate them into your content strategy whenever possible.
Power up your content strategy
Ready to take your content quality to the next level? High quality content can have all kinds of positive impacts on your business, from strengthening brand trust to improving search engine rankings, boosting organic traffic, and pushing users further down their path to purchase.
For a marketing platform that supports your content strategy and integrates with your essential marketing tools, meet Mailchimp. Our all-in-one email, social, and SMS platform puts your most important communication channels all under one roof. Try Mailchimp today.
Key Takeaways
- High quality content is highly relevant to your audience, accurate and trustworthy, engaging, and SEO optimized.
- Developing a quality-first content strategy builds trust and authority, improves SEO performance, drives better engagement, and supports every other piece of your marketing.
- Creating high quality content begins with understanding your audience and their needs.
- Use data and feedback to constantly improve your content marketing strategy.