It’s very easy to lose sight of the importance of content when you become too focused on search rankings and traffic numbers. With this focus comes the perception that all that is needed to drive traffic, is a high quantity of content that pushes all the right buttons for SEO. While it is important to keep your content quantities high, as well as to check all the SEO boxes (keywords, etc.), you should never do so at the expense of quality.
Don’t take our word for it either. Google’s guidelines make it very clear that the search engine assesses content quality when calculating search rankings. It makes use of a series of fairly complicated algorithms to do so. But, to put it as simply as possible, Google measures your content in the light of the purported purpose of your website, as well as the audience’s reactions to it. Readers who are after certain content will find and return to websites that they find really useful, and Google will register that.
Google also measures what it calls your E-A-T rankings. In other words, how your website performs in terms of expertise, authority and trust. Google will rank your website higher if the content is demonstrably created by someone who is a proven expert in their field, if the website is endorsed by another recognised authority on the subject as well as when the site has established a high level of trust among readers on the basis of ratings and reviews.
So, it should be obvious why it is important to put a lot of energy into the quality of your content. Remember that, no matter how much content you serve to your users, they will soon lose interest and look elsewhere if that content is not useful and authoritative. Create content with your user in mind first – and the rest will follow.
WSI OMS can help you to create excellent, SEO-beating content. Contact us for help with your website copy, blogs, social media and more.