Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net
Search engine spiders crawl the text on your website. They can’t “see” your logo, colors, or graphics. So, the secret to higher organic (free) rankings has always been in your content. And in the past, getting the right content was basically a matter of the quantity of keywords and links.
The problem for Google was that the Web pages on company websites weren’t very good. People’s questions weren’t getting answered and the same poorly written, low quality pages would appear over and over again. Google searchers became unhappy.
These low value pages were hurting Google’s reputation as the go-to search engine on the Web. When your prospects search online, they want good, authoritative answers, products, or even entertainment. Not meaningless pages packed with the words they typed into the search engines.
You Can Use Google Content Quality Standards to Your Advantage
So a few years ago, Google introduced its Panda algorithm update. In its Webmaster Central Blog it defined the change as one that will reduce the rankings of low-value sites and, “At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” (Bold is mine.)
Google based its new algorithms on delivering the best possible experience for users. They’ve even listed 23 questions to ask yourself to determine how Google would rate your content for quality.
The overarching criteria for quality content that jumped out at me from the list are trust, grammar, spelling, lack of copy errors, authority, completeness, insight, interest, and sharability.
7 Criteria to Gauge the Quality of Your Content
I’ve taken these criteria from the list of 23 questions from Google on building quality sites. You can use these, too, as you think about your next blog post, Web page, or Linkedin article.
1. Grammar, Spelling, Copy Errors
After writing over 400 Web pages and blog posts I can tell you that first drafts are almost never good enough. Edit your copy, preferably the next day when you’re fresh. Reading it aloud helps, too, especially to catch poor syntax. And have another person with unbiased eyes read over your work. Take a look at this post to help you edit your content.
2. Authority
You know what you’re talking about so don’t be afraid to go into some depth with your post or page. Prove your authority with detail, stories from experience, and answers for your readers.
3. Completeness
I’m seeing my online mentors recommend blog posts of 700-800 words. This is longer than the old normal of 300-500 words and I’m even seeing recommendations of more than 800 words per post.
4. Insight
Convey understanding of motivations and relationships that sheds light on solving a particular problem.
5. Interest
Get the interest of your reader at the very beginning of your page. Creating a good headline and lead draws your reader in. Starting your piece out with a story creates interest and an emotional connection with your reader.
6. Sharable
The power of social media is in the sharing of your content to the lists of Likes and Followers of your audience.
7. Trust
There are many ways you can convey trust in your company. Get your phone number and email address in at the top of your page in the header. Place quality symbols on each page: BBB, professional associations, etc. Make links to your contact page easy to find. All of these convey that you have nothing to hide and that you are ready to do business.
The link to the Google guidance on building high quality sites is here. I highly recommend you take a few minutes to read this post from Google. It will help you create quality pages that will get higher rankings in organic (free) search and engage your visitors.
Until next time,
Nick
Nick Burns is a Web writer specializing in persuasive copywriting and content marketing. Nick’s services include SEO Web writing, website information architecture, content marketing, consulting, and publishing. He provides clients a winning online strategy plus the content writing to make it work. You can contact Nick here.
