Why Providing Quality Content for your Blog is Important
Why Providing Quality Content for Your Blog Is Important
These days it seems like almost everyone has a blog. A blog can be a great way of promoting your business and any SEO strategy worth its salt will include blogging. But, a lot of these blogs are not managed correctly. People go for click bait articles like “5 unbelievable ways to increase website traffic” or “this person got their website ranked #1 on Google in a day, find out how.” These blog creators will focus all their effort on making up titles to draw readers in and then provide low-quality content that was clearly written quickly and with minimal effort. These sorts of click bait articles will get some clicks, but they will not lead to people sticking around to read other articles on your blog, which is what you want if you run a blog or a website. If you want your blog to actually be successful and get some dedicated readers, then you need to provide quality content for people to read. If you are confused, don’t worry, we will explain what exactly is considered quality content, how to make quality content, and the many reasons why it is important for your blog.
What is Quality Content?
What exactly is meant by the term quality content? You might think that “quality” in this case is another term for “long.” But, you would be wrong. Although long content is great, you do not have to write a 10,000-word blog post every day to have quality content on your blog. Quality content is written to genuinely help readers solve a problem, get an answer to a question, or to explore a topic in detail. In other words, you should not be writing the post just to rank your blog on a search engine. You can, of course, use a keyword or two, but the blog post should just not be written to get the keyword ranked on Google.
Quality content is content that is well researched, well written (meaning it flows nicely and is free of grammar or spelling mistakes), and is above all, unique. The content for your blog should not be sloppily put together or automatically generated using online tools like spinners. This lines up well with what Google considers to be quality content. Google harshly punishes blogs or websites that use spinner generated content. It penalizes sites or blogs that are filled with grammar or spelling mistakes. It also frowns heavily on websites and blogs that simply rip content from other, more reputable places online. Google does all these because it wants its users to be able to find content that genuinely answers the user’s question or helps solve the user’s problem; blogs or websites that cannot be bothered to actually produce unique content and just rely on auto-generated content or plagiarized content will not help Google’s users and thus Google does not rank them.
So, as you can see, quality content is not just another way of saying that you need to write blog posts. Although length is a small part of writing quality content (Google does not look fondly on 200-300 word posts), there are a bunch of other factors like accuracy, good flow, and good style, which are important factors for producing quality content. You need to make sure that you are putting serious thought and effort into each post.
How do you Produce Quality Content?
Start with a Question that you Intend to Answer
When you want to produce quality content, you need to start with a question or problem that your intended audience may have. So, if your blog is meant to cater to small business owners, start with a problem small business owners may actually have. For example, small business owners may be looking for ways to improve their engagement on Twitter or market better on Facebook. This is where your blog comes in. Clearly state what problem or question you intend to deal with in your blog post. Once you have established what question or problem you are going to deal with, you have a solid base from which to create the rest of the blog post.
Do some Solid Research
Accuracy is one of the most important factors when it comes to writing quality content. Nothing shatters your blog’s reputation like publishing a post filled with incorrect information or half-truths. With search engines like Google at your fingertips, finding accurate information from reliable sources should not be difficult. Also, do not be afraid to link to this research in your actual blog post. It may seem counterproductive to link away from your blog, but actually linking the sources you used does a couple of things. It helps Google and other search engines determine exactly under what category your content should be indexed. It lets readers know that you are not just making the research up since they can just physically click on the links and see the information for themselves. Plus, when you actually link to sources it creates an idea in the minds of readers that your blog is a reliable source of information that they can consult in the future.
Do not just Provide Answers, Provide Examples
When it comes to writing quality content, go above and beyond just providing solutions to a set of problems; try providing actual examples of how the blog’s intended audience could make use of the information in your blog. For example, if you are writing a blog post about how small business owners can increase their engagement on social media, do not just write something like “post content that people are more likely to share and like.” Actually provide examples of content that people are likely to share with friends and that is likely to gain lots of likes. If readers see that your blog is useful, they will bookmark it or make a mental note to check the blog regularly for more useful information.
Edit, Edit, Edit
Famous authors, including authors like Hemmingway, King, and others have long said that a large part of the writing process is actually rewriting what you have already written. Now, writing novels is a very different process than writing quality content for a blog, but the principle still applies. If you are committed to filling your blog with great content, then you need to accept that your first attempt at writing a post is not going to be perfect. You need to edit your post to make sure that it flows smoothly, that it is interesting to read, and that it is free of grammar and spelling mistakes. You can use free online spell checkers to detect potential grammar or spelling errors, but when it comes to other issues like determining whether the blog post is interesting to read and whether it flows correctly, you are going to have to read the blog post yourself and edit accordingly.
Why Quality Content is Important
Providing quality content for your blog is important for a number of reasons. The fact that quality content is important for getting your blog ranked on Google and that Google punishes low effort content has already been covered. But, there are a bunch of other reasons why you should post quality content on your blog.
Lowering your Bounce Rate
If you are not familiar with the concept of bounce rate, then you should be as it is a crucial concept for anyone running a blog or a website. Bounce rate refers to the percentage of people who visit your blog, only read one page, and then leave. Now, getting a bounce rate of zero or close to zero is impossible; there will always be people who read one piece of writing on your blog and just never come back. But, you want to try and keep your bounce rate as low as possible. One of the best methods for keeping your bounce rate low is to provide quality content so that readers will actually want to stay on your blog and read two or three posts. On the other hand, if you provide sub-par content then your bounce rate is going to skyrocket; after all, why would a reader bother staying around to read another blog post when the first one was awful?
Read More: How to Improve your Bounce Rate
Increasing Click Through Rate
If you make money on your blog through affiliate marketing (directing people to other people’s services or products) then you probably already know how important it is to maintain a good click through rate. For those who are not familiar with the concept, click through rate refers to the number of people who read your blog post and actually click on the affiliate links. Providing quality content helps give your blog an air of authority. People reading it will trust what you say and see that you know what you are talking about. This makes them far more likely to actually click on links you tell them to since you clearly know what you are talking about and if you are recommending a product or service, then clearly it must be good. If you do not provide quality content, then your click through rate is going to tank. A person is not going to click on a link to a product or service if the entire blog post is simply a 400-500 word advertisement for whatever is being linked.
Read More: How to Increase your Organic Click Through Rate
Better Conversion Rates
Much like with click through rates, quality content is a great way to boost conversion rates on your blog. People are far more likely to buy a product or service or fill out an email form if you have great content that they enjoyed reading. If you provide bad content, when the person reads your call to action then they are just going to ignore it. But, if they just read a great, entertaining post, then when they read your call to action they are far more likely to respond to it positively.
Building a Good Reputation
If your blog gets a reputation for providing either low-quality content full of outright fabrications, then that is going to reflect poorly on you and your brand. Getting a reputation for providing engaging, well-researched content is a good way of setting your blog apart from the many other blogs that populate your specific niche.
Getting Shared and Linked by Others
One of the biggest bonuses you get for providing quality content on your blog is that other people are more likely to share your blog or link to it on their own blog or website. Bad content is never going to be linked to by anyone (except maybe as an example of what not to post on a blog) but a blog filled with quality content will be constantly linked to by others. This does two things for your blog. First off, it ensures that you have a constant influx of new readers who were given a link to your blog either on social media or by another blog that linked to yours. Secondly, being linked to constantly will really help your blog skyrocket in search engine rankings which will then lead to even more people discovering your blog. Of course, you can always pay to get your blog shared on social media, but getting shared organically because of the quality content you provide is always going to be much better for your blog.
Conclusion
So, hopefully, you now understand that providing quality content on your blog does more than just boost your search engine ranking. It actively helps you increase your click through rates and your conversion rates. It helps you build a solid reputation for your blog which will set you apart from competing blogs. It lets you build up a dedicated base of readers who will actively visit your blog to read the newest post you put out. Consistently putting out great blog content is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but as you can see, the benefits associated with putting out great content regularly are more than worth the effort.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2018 Jessica Zeitz
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