I receive daily requests from people asking to guest post on my blog. Although I do not accept guest posts, this doesn’t seem to stop people from sending me content for review. What I have found common is that people still seem to be writing simply to generate content, not create quality articles to inform readers.

In today’s world, generating content is not enough, the content must be of quality. If you want to create a blog, you need to make sure that it informs people about information they are looking for, not just written to attract people to your site. Not only has Google gotten smarter, but consumers are now more internet savvy and can quickly see through poorly written content (and will move on to your competitor’s website).

What Exactly is Meant by Quality?

You have probably heard people pounding the idea of “quality content” like they are beating a dead horse. It has been so overstated that it has started to lose its meaning. In order to be of quality, writers are focusing on spelling, grammar, and readability. All of these are great, but that is only the first part of creating quality content.

In order for your content to be of quality, people must actually read, understand, and share it. Ever wonder why a similar article from the same website will hit higher in search rankings? It’s because of page authority which is an indicator of quality. In order to increase page authority, your article must be something that people want to read. Simply putting words together to trick Google is not going to work.

Page authority increases with a number of factors. These include how many pages link to the content, how much the content is shared, time on site, etc. All of these indicate that the page is of quality as no-one would do these if the article was simply stuffed with a bunch of keywords.

Tips For Creating Quality Content

Prior to writing your first word, you need to come up with article ideas. If your ideas come from keywords you are trying to rank for, you are starting off at the wrong point. You need to begin with your reader in mind, not SEO.

Think about what people are searching for; answers to questions people want to know. This is not only great advice but a talking point of Matt Cutts, former head of the web spam team at Google. And, trust me, what Cutts says is what normally happens.

Matt Cutts, former head of the web spam team at Google, with some of the best search advice ever given. Image credit.

You can use a number of tools to help you determine what people are looking for, including Google Trends. Once you know, write your article to provide information relevant to that topic. Put yourself in the readers’ shoes and provide the answers to the questions they have. Keywords will come naturally and the article will read better, leading to longer time onsite, more shares, and natural backlinks.

Summing it Up

Too many people are blogging to generate content and not inform readers. In order to attract visitors and increase your blog’s popularity (both by humans and in search results) you must write quality articles that inform readers about what they want to know. Keyword stuffing and filler content will only put you into the sea of dull bloggers and not allow you to stand out from the crowd.

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