How to Create Quality Content to Improve Your Rankings in 7 Easy Steps

“Content is king”. We have all heard this famous quote by Bill Gates, right? But why is it so? Or, moreover, considering all the updates and ranking factors, why is it still so? Let us walk you through the most significant steps of what it takes to create quality content.

Let’s start with a simple scheme from Zlest on how to create quality content and then elaborate on each factor.

So What Does It Mean?

Content helps you build relationships, and high-quality content helps you build long-term relationships with customers. This is one reason why we should pay attention to creating high-quality content.

Some of the benefits of high-quality content include:

• Your audience stays with you longer
• You get better exposure on social media
• You build trust with your customers
• Helps you generate more leads
• Can improve conversions
• Can position your company as an authority in your industry
• Builds brand awareness
• You will save money on your marketing strategy

To benefit from high-quality content, follow these steps…

1. Create Content for Your Audience

It is very important to put yourself in the readers’ situation, but also to take into account what your users actually want to read about.

You should perform a keyword analysis to know what readers are looking for. You can use Google Keyword Planner, the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, and other platforms to find out what people are searching for, and then create content around those topics.

Keyword research also helps your rankings, because more visitors and lower bounce rates show Google that your site is ranking well in search results. There are other ways to get to know your audience better, some are as follows:

• Creating a buyer persona – basically rule number one in creating content. You should always put yourself on your readers’ shoes and see the topics from their perspective: Does it fulfill their needs? Does it answer their questions?
• Make a list of the commonly asked topics or frequently asked questions, and then provide content like blog pieces or video tutorials to address them.
• Find out what types of queries your potential consumers may be posing on forums related to your industry.
• Because its subreddits (forums) can be quite specialized, Reddit can be a great resource in this case.
• Go through comments on relevant blogs or even comment on the newest events and developments in your industry, to feel closer to your readership and acknowledge their needs.
• Don’t forget to keep an eye on what your rivals are up to. You should always analyze your competitors’ content and identify the factors that are making them rank: Is it keyword frequency? Is it visuals and graphs? Find out and note those down.
• Create an honest backlink profile with others in your business and in the media; this will encourage search engines to view you as more authority.

2. Your Content Should be Easy to Read

If you want to get your message across and ensure that readers read your blog post or page in its entirety, you should make your content easy to read, some of the ways to make content easy to read are:

• Use paragraphs because too much text without headings or paragraphs tends to scare people away. Always make sure your content is structured and easy to go through.
• Try to limit the use of difficult words because this can make your content harder to understand, which in turn slows down your readers. Sounding academic and using complex sentences isn’t really the way to go if you’re trying to rank your content. You’re writing for your audience, make sure it matches their vocabulary and tone.
• Use synonyms.
• Alternate longer sentences with shorter ones.
• Use lists. We’reall looking for specific information, right? Lists make it easier to identify and focus on the main points of a content piece.
• Use readable fonts like Times New Roman.
• Use photos, diagrams or even videos. Many blogs nowadays make audio and video versions of their blog posts. This way, you make sure to address visual and audio learners as well.

3. Create Your Outline

A content outline is simply a more detailed site map that shows where the information is placed visually on your new website. The content outline goes a step further by listing the specific features of each page and the different types of content. Therefore, create an outline with bullet points that clarifies what should be included.

If you plan ahead, your writing process will run smoothly and efficiently.

4. Choose Images that Add Value to the Content

The images should be of high quality and emphasize your message. Some tips for photos are:

• Optimize your photos.
• Resize your images because they can slow down your site.
• Screenshot use when relevant is important.
• Use your own photos, or make sure that you respect copyrights.
• Include alt texts.

5. Be Trustworthy

Show your readers that you are a reliable source by doing the following:

• Write in a clear and user-oriented manner,
• try to get away from stock photos,
• add Google reviews and testimonials on the right pages,
• set up HTTPS.

6. Update the Content

Update your content from time to time to ensure that visitors are finding the right information. This is important for search engine optimization as it shows Google that your site is “alive” and relevant. Let’s say your blog is already ranking. You should keep enriching your content, so it keeps its position in rankings. The search results are a wild place, you must keep pushing your content forward by updating it, so it doesn’t lose the authority it has built.

7. Have an SEO Strategy in Place

An SEO strategy helps you look at your content marketing from a holistic, long-term perspective and ensure your content is aligned with your business goals.

Writing articles and news to be published on another website is a very useful strategy. But if you write quality content, it is very important and some of the benefits are:

• Links give you credibility,
• Google uses links to rank your website,
• backlinks bring you an increase in web traffic,
• link building leads to higher website metrics and SEO scores,
• improves relationships within your niche.

Therefore, think about what link-building strategies you should use in order to succeed or find a company to help you with it.

Final Thoughts on How to Create Quality Content

Quality content impacts any website, so it is very important to take care of the quality of your content. Some of the ways you can create quality content are: make sure you are writing for your readers, make your content readable, match search intent with your goals, be trustworthy, keep your content up to date and work on your website structure and use link building strategies to benefit from them.