4 Components of Quality Content

You have the plan – from the content’s purpose to ideas to format – and even to type– now it is time to produce quality content that fulfills your purpose while taking the audience into consideration. There are two ways to accomplish this task: in-house or out-sourcing.

 No matter what process you use, key aspects to quality writing go beyond just who writes the content, but also aspects of the content.

Four components that cannot be ignored are:

1. Title and Subtitle - A solid catchy title is essential to capture a reader’s attention, no matter the format of the content. In fact, it is the most important element since it informs the audience as to what the content is about and it will inspire them to actually read or view a piece. Without a strong title, what is the point of having good content? Follow this up with a descriptive subtitle that fills in some of the blanks, and you will have a winning combination that when shared by your employees will garner traffic that ultimately drives both brand recognition and sales.

2. Search Engine Optimization - Keywords drive the ability for your content to be found – even in image-based content such as an infographic. Finding the balance for saturation of keywords (whether in the content or the metadata) is key to success with this. Experts vary as to how many keywords should be present in your content with ranges from 1% to 25%. Most agree that less is more. Have enough keywords throughout title, subtitle, subhead, content, and metadata to be picked up by search engines. But don’t overload with keywords, as that could cause a search engine to disallow you in searches, which does nothing to help you.

3. Images - Pictures, infographics, or art graphics are essential components for written content, as well as can serve as the entire content. They capture your audience’s attention, draw them in with interesting imagery that prompts them to read the words. Fact is, the human brain can process images faster than words so it makes sense to have this as a part of your content. The wrong pictures could do harm though – drive people away. Staying in line with your purpose goes a long way to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Imagery is likely the most important part of social media advocacy (especially for use on Twitter). In fact, our own data analysis has shown that a tweet is 60% more likely to get a click/like/share if it has an image attached than if it does not. One simple truth plays out: It’s about getting attention. While images do take up more real estate on the social media channel (since they use more bandwidth), they are worth the costs (since they drive up brand recognition and sales faster). There are all sorts of image types to choose from, including stock photos, memes, graphics, product imagery, and video.

4. Substance and Value - Does your content actually say anything or does it just regurgitate already known information? This is the most common mistake marketers make. All too often writers take a well-known concept and just restate it. This is a lazy man’s way of content marketing and will only hurt you. Your audience will notice and not come back Now there’s nothing wrong with covering a known topic, but make sure you build upon it and give the reader true value. Show your audience you understand the topic at hand by expanding the idea and providing them with something they didn’t know previously. After all, visitors came to your blog to learn something, not to reread something they already know.