The number one reason you need to be concerned about having quality content on your website is because it matters to search engines. Visual appeal doesn’t factor in to search rank because search engines can’t see how great your site looks; they have to rely on more concrete elements, like content. You may think…shouldn’t my main concern be the impression the website leaves on a potential customer? Well, yes, but the two really go hand in hand because the search engines have the user experience covered as their main concern. They will go right ahead and penalize a site with duplicate, spammy or poor quality content to make it less likely for a user to ever stumble upon it. When you please the search engines, you please the customer. Let’s look at exactly how content affects a user’s impression of your business and a search engine’s ranking of your website.
Duplicate Content
The main point here is quality over quantity. Repeating the same passages over and over throughout your site in order to look like you have a good amount of content will only hurt rather than help your cause. Search engines also recognize passages duplicated from different sources across the internet, so do not copy content from another site. Don’t do it.
Grammar
This is simple but important. The presence of grammatical errors on your website is one of the quickest ways to discredit your business to users…and one of the easiest ways for search engines to punish your site. Even a professional writer needs a second pair of eyes.
Bounce rate
If the user lands on your website and finds it visually appealing, that’s great. But if that’s it, if there’s no content to engage them and keep them on your site, they will have a quick look and then move on to something else. That creates a high bounce rate, which tells search engines that your site is just a pretty face with nothing useful to provide the user and…your search rank drops.
Popularity
It’s important to expand the reach of your content beyond the borders of your own site. The way search engines see it, content with value will be shared by users and will have external links across the internet rather than just sitting stagnant on your web page waiting for someone to stumble upon it. That’s why popularity on social media and the number of external links to your site are two factors that will affect your search ranking.
Keywords
The presence of relevant keywords is still important to search engines, but optimizing content now requires a bit of a different strategy. Google is now able to understand that similar keywords and keyword phrases may fall under the same user intent, so there’s no need to try to choose the highest searched term or to try to stuff all variations of a keyword into one page. In fact, doing so may run the risk of punishment for keyword stuffing.
Write for the user
Writing with the user in mind rather than writing for the search engines will serve everyone best. If the content is substantial, unique, well written, answers the user’s questions, can easily be shared and is very simply optimized just to point out what the search engines should look for, it should naturally serve as a benefit to your customers and to your search ranking.
High quality content such as this will present you as an expert in your field, which will create an excellent, long lasting first impression and establish a sense of trust and credibility with potential customers. But high quality content is not easy for just anyone to create; you will likely need the help of a professional to make your content work for you rather than against you.