{"id":22621,"date":"2016-10-07T11:10:31","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T18:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iteratemarketing.com\/?p=22621"},"modified":"2016-10-07T11:10:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T18:10:31","slug":"google-define-quality-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iteratemarketing.com\/blog\/google-define-quality-content\/","title":{"rendered":"How Does Google Define "Quality Content"?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For over a half-decade (a near eternity in digital marketing time) there has been a constant drumbeat coming from experts in SEO and Search Engine Marketing:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Content is King. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Backlinks for the sake of backlinks are dangerous. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Write great content and Google will reward you.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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This is, of course, valuable advice; a lesson that many of you have taken to heart. With<\/span> Penguin 4.0 released <\/span><\/a>recently, a spammy or unnatural backlink profile is a liability far beyond any potential value, and social media has made engaging and valuable content easier to share – a trend that will like continue for yet another half-decade at the least.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But <\/span>creating quality content is not an easy task<\/b>, and chances are good that your savvy competitors are working just as hard to push more content. In the past few years, there has been a glut of new content created across all industries. Just look at this chart of webpages indexed by Google:<\/span><\/p>\n

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So, with all the advice to create great content, you still need to consider – How is <\/span>your<\/span><\/i> webpage going to stand out from the crowd? If your competitors are all looking to take a bigger slice of the pie, how are you going to ensure that your pages are the ones appearing at the top in search?<\/span><\/p>\n

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How To Stand Out From The Crowd<\/span><\/h2>\n

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Another piece of advice that is often trotted out is this: <\/span><\/p>\n

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Write for users first and foremost. Google will show what people want to see.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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This is true.. to a certain point. But if you put too much stock in this advice, you are at risk of ignoring the true importance of Google\u2019s standards. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Remember, Google is likely your first, and most influential, audience. Your page will be crawled and indexed before anyone outside your company interacts with it, and even the most well-written post will fade into the 4th of 5th page of search results if it doesn\u2019t meet certain key standards.<\/span><\/p>\n

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How Google Defines Quality Content<\/span><\/h2>\n

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Luckily, Google is fairly up-front regarding their standards; after all, if their true goal is to promote great content, it pays to tell webmasters how to write. Of course, there is a fair amount of pithy and uninformative jargon here, too:<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe key to creating a great website is to create the best possible experience for your audience with original and high quality content.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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But with a little digging, we can boil this advice down into a few basic and actionable tenets. Here are the basics, pulled from <\/span>Search Console Help<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Google Webmaster Guidelines<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Be Useful and Informative: <\/span><\/h3>\n

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The key here is to answer the questions that real users will want. If you are a restaurant, for instance, feel free to talk about your philosophy of cuisine, the atmosphere of your dining area, and local celebrities who dine there regularly. But <\/span>first and foremost answer the questions that 90% of your users will be looking for<\/b>: What time do you open and close? Do you take reservations? Do you have Happy Hour? What\u2019s on the menu this week?<\/span><\/p>\n

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On the more technical side, consider the words that you use – not just on your page, but also in <title> and <description> elements. These should all be \u201cdescriptive, specific, and accurate\u201d and should use the words that your customers are actually searching for. Remember, Google (and some less-sophisticated readers) might not realize that \u201cGuangdong-Sichuan Fusion\u201d means \u201cChinese Cuisine.\u201d It\u2019s perfectly fine to use the former, as long as the latter appears as well! <\/span><\/p>\n

Be Credible<\/span><\/h3>\n

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This is something we all learned in school. Don\u2019t steal or plaigerise, and always show your sources. It\u2019s fine to use reseearch from other sites, but always link to your source – these links are a signal that you\u2019ve done hard work and care about showing your customers the highest quality research.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If you do include advertisements on your site, ensure that these are treated differently than resource and reference links – use rel=\u201dnofollow\u201d prudently to avoid muddying the waters too much. Otherwise, a link to an advertisement gets equal weight to a link to valuable research.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Be Engaging<\/span><\/h3>\n

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Don\u2019t just give dry information to your customers, delight them with good design, images, and interactive elements. Of course, Google doesn\u2019t have a live person looking at your site to give it a score, so you must also make sure that any non-textual content can still be \u2018read\u2019 and understood by Google\u2019s crawlers.<\/span><\/p>\n