Have you ever wondered what makes a website stand out from the rest? Websites that rank well in search engines do so because they focus on creating quality content for their audience.
It's not something that can be done overnight.
In order to create an effective content marketing strategy, you need to be doing the right things to grow your brand and make it more visible to those who are looking for the industry-specific information you have to offer.
The team over at QuickSprout has created the infographic below that highlights the 10 elements of content you need to make a high quality website that drives traffic, leads and sales.
What is High Quality Content?
Quality content is original, purposeful, and correctly optimized information that people and search engines are driven to read, view, and share. Quality content helps you rank better for search engines and delights your customers.
10 Elements That Make a High Quality Website
Here is a list of the important elements of content that should be present in your website:
1. Relevance & Context
Google is moving towards analyzing topics and context, not just keywords. The search engine understands the meaning of words and how they are related to each other. Google's algorithm recognizes high quality, relevant content and rewards it with higher rankings. This is how you turn your website into a lead-generating machine.
Tip: Focus on developing content for users, not search engines.
2. Content Length
- Top ranking sites have 900+ words of content per page.
- Ideal blog post length from SEO perspective is between 2,000 - 2,450+ words long.
- Sites with more words in the copy occupy higher-ranking positions.
- Ideal blog post length from reader's perspective is 1,600 words long.
Tip: Focus on developing longer content.
3. Images & Video
- An image must be at least 32 x 32 px in size to be counted as such.
- Blog posts with images and videos are more engaging for visitors.
- Web pages with more images rank better.
- Web pages in top rankings have an average of 7 images.
Tip: Include an image or video for each new chapter of your post.
4. Grammar & Spelling
- Grammar and spelling mistakes make you look bad in the eyes of your customer. - Google, Yahoo and Bing might penalize you for grammar and spelling stakes.
- Flawless copy makes you look professional.
Tip: Always read your copy at least 2 times before you publish it. Hire an editor to proofread and edit your post.
5. Readability
- Readability is the ease in which text can be read and understood.
- Use the Flesch reading ease formula to determine the readability of your text.
- High ranking texts are easier to read.
Tip: Use shorter sentences, paragraphs and active verb forms. Remove all clutter, unnecessary words and limit the use of adverbs/adjectives.
6. Formatting
- High quality content is easier to read and suitable for scanning and skimming.
- Google can detect page layout and you might get penalized for poor formatting.
- Visitors are less likely to read a post with poor formatting.
Tip: Use H1/H2 tags, number lists and bullet points to break down your content. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Use bold and italics to highlight important parts.
7. Expertise
- The expertise of the author is a critical factor for any content to be considered high quality.
- People want to read posts from experts that can dig into a topic and explain it.
Tip: Focus on writing detailed, well-researched posts. Link to other posts and give examples to support your points.
8. Social Media Shares
- Content that has been extensively tweeted about can cut indexation time by 50%.
- High quality content tends to be shared more.
- High quality websites have social media buttons present on the pages.
- More social media shares correlate to higher search engine ranking.
Tip: Place your social media sharing icons visible on the page and include call-to-action for people to share.
9. Google Internal & External Links
- Pages that rank better generally have a better internal link structure with more links.
- The URL that you link to and the anchor text need to be relevant to your content.
- Linking to valuable external resources delights your readers.
Tip: Focus on building a nice internal link architecture. Never link to unrelated pages, or you will get penalized by Google.
10. Quality of Comments
- Web content with a high number of comments is perceived as high quality.
- Spammy unrelated comments might hurt your ranking and make you look bad in the eyes of your visitors.
- Quality thoughtful comments help you rank better and engages your readers with the content.