The internet is a hub of an enormous amount of data, and if you were to study that data in minutes, you’d find that every minute:
- More than 474,000 tweets are posted on Twitter.
- 300 hours of content is uploaded on YouTube.
- 510,000 comments, 293,000 statuses, and 136,000 photos are posted on Facebook.
- And more than 3.5 billion searches are conducted worldwide on Google.
Surrounded by all that content, how do you plan to create blogs that get distinguished from the rest? The answer is simple: create high-quality useful content.
Creating high-quality and information-rich content is the fundamental way of driving traffic to your domain.
Having high-quality content on your website can lead to:
- Increased credibility amid the search engines as well as the users.
- A consistent amount of traffic driven to your domain – the majority of the high-quality content is evergreen.
- More links pointing to your domain – other blogs prefer linking to high-quality content pieces.
- A higher number of social media shares – people share content that they find to be helpful for others as well.
But what are the key components of creating high-quality content? In this post, I have listed 7 core ingredients of producing content that is both high-quality and useful for the users.
1. Prepare definite topics and cover them in detail
When it comes to creating quality content, you must begin with determining the topic of your article, and it is not easy to choose and prepare a topic. You have to spend a lot of time researching before finalizing one. Also, since this is the initial stage of creating high-quality content, you must conduct the research keeping that in mind.
While creating a topic, you must focus on making it specific and execute your research accordingly. Once the topic is finalized, it is necessary for you to cover it from all angles and in a descriptive manner.
Being descriptive does not mean that you should create a blog that consists of 2000 words. A piece of content can be considered high-quality and vivid, even if it has a maximum word count of 1000. But that content must cover all the necessary information which can resolve a user’s queries.
Here’s an example for better understanding: How To Research For A Blog Post?
In this post, the author has covered everything associated with researching for a blog post, which includes creating an appropriate title, analyzing the competitors, to making it search engine friendly. And the article has a maximum word count of 1141.
Key takeaways:
- Target a specific topic.
- Cover it through different angles.
- Conduct a detailed research.
- Focus on the information rather than the word count.
2. Provide actionable solutions to problems
Providing users with only the necessary information isn’t enough. Your content must give them some actionable solutions. It must provide ways to resolve their queries in details through steps and tips that can be executed conveniently.
You can start your article with covering the basics of the topic and then head towards making some actionable advice that readers will find useful.
For example, look at the article: An All-Inclusive Guide to Video Marketing
This article has covered every aspect of video marketing in detail. It started with defining “what is video marketing?” and ended with “how to do video marketing?”. Also, it has talked about the importance of video marketing and the various types of marketing videos.
Key takeaways:
- Focus on resolving user queries.
- Guide them with actionable solutions.
- Cover the basics and then move on to the advanced.
- Don’t spare any details.
3. Support your claims with authentic data and case studies
The next most important trait of high-quality content is credibility, And to make your content credible, you must support it with authentic facts and figures. If you are claiming that “people use Facebook more than Instagram”, then you need to provide an authentic source and support it with exact numbers.
For instance, it is better if you say “Facebook has 2 billion active users whereas as Instagram’s user-base has reached 1 billion” in 2019.
Apart from this, when you are explaining something in your post, it is best advised to provide appropriate examples and case studies for better understanding of the audience.
For this, you can again refer to this article: An All-Inclusive Guide to Video Marketing.
In this guide, you can see that stats and examples are provided wherever they are required.
Here are the stats proving that video marketing can improve your engagement rate:
And, here are the examples that help readers understand the various types of marketing videos:
Key takeaways:
- Make your content credible with authentic sources.
- Support your claims with stats.
- Provide examples and case studies for better understanding of the topic.
4. Include links to useful resources and tools for better understanding
There’s a difference between linking to sources and linking to resources.
As mentioned previously, when you claim something, you must support that claim by linking to the relevant source. But when it comes to resource, you direct your audience to posts and articles that will be useful for them to gain more insight on a topic.
Look at this section from the article “how to research for a blog post?”
Here, when you click on the hyperlinked text (marked in green), you are redirected to “Does Blog commenting play a vital role in SEO?”.
Now, those users who prefer reading about how to build links through blog commenting, they will refer to this article.
Similarly, you should provide links to the necessary tools (if you’ve mentioned those in your post) with a short tutorial on how to use them.
In the same post (how to research for a blog post?), you’ll find that the author has provided a short tutorial on how to use Google trends to choose an appropriate title for your content.
Key takeaways:
- Link to relevant resources to help the readers better understand the topic.
- Provide links and short tutorials on the tools that you mention in your content.
5. Customize visuals to simplify complex subjects
Adding visuals to your content can keep the readers engaged. If your content does not have enough visuals, it can bore the audience with huge blocks of textual information. But when you do have visuals, you must know EXACTLY how to leverage them.
You can make use of visuals to simplify the complex subjects and help the audience understand them easily.
For instance, look at this post: What Is Google Crawling And Indexing?
In this post, the author has used an image to simplify the working of Google.
Apart from images, you can use infographics, videos, and GIFs as well.
Key takeaways:
- Use visuals to keep your audience engaged.
- Simplify complex subjects through visuals.
- Use images, infographics, videos, and GIFs to break the monotony of textual information.
6. Prefer simple words over too many industry jargons
When you are creating content, you must prefer simple words over industry jargon. If you keep your content simple and conversational, readers will understand your content better. And if you use too many industry jargons, then they will have to check for its meaning constantly.
Apart from this, you should deliver the information in a structure. You should include a heading, subheading, and so forth. Including pointers and key takeaways is also considered a good habit to make your content easy to read and understand.
The prime example for this kind of content is in this article itself. You can see how I have structured the content with appropriate heading and also, I have mentioned minimum industry jargons. Plus, there are “key takeaways” as well.
Key takeaway:
- Use a conversational tone.
- Use simple words.
- Refrain from using too many industry jargons.
Conclusion:
These are the top six components of creating high-quality content. If you follow each one accurately, you will experience a sudden increase in the traffic driven to your site. Plus, your rankings will improve, too.
I have included examples with every pointer for better understanding and used most of these techniques in preparing my content as well.
However, if you still think of any other tip to create high-quality content, please mention in the comments section below. I’ll be happy to extend this list further.
About the Author: Sahil Kakkar is the CEO and Founder of Rankwatch — a platform, which helps companies and brands stay ahead with their SEO efforts in the ever growing internet landscape. Sahil likes making creative products that can help in automation of mundane tasks and he can spend endless nights implementing new technologies and ideas. You can connect with him and the Rankwatch team on Facebook or Twitter.