The importance of high quality web content.

Beautiful, feature-rich web design is the foundation of any business. But on its own, even the most amazing website can’t guarantee business success. Another important part of the puzzle? High quality web content.

Good website content is a must-have website quality. It helps your site get seen by your potential customers. And it helps convert those prospects into buyers and loyal brand advocates.

Website content tends to fall into one of the following categories:

• Written content: blogs, white papers, guides, case studies, ebooks
• Visual content: images, videos, infographics, animations
• Audio content: an embedded podcast
• Interactive content: quizzes, calculators, polls, interactive maps

Remember, you don’t need to do all of these things to create an effective content strategy. The focus is quality, not quantity. Doing one thing really well is better than doing lots of things badly.

But why do it at all? Here, we look at why website content is important – and what high quality web content looks like.

Benefits of high quality web content

The vast majority of marketers and business owners are already using website content to their advantage. 69% of marketers planned to increase their content marketing budget in 2023. And 80% say that content creation is a top priority.

So why does the clichéd phrase – “content is king” – still ring true? Here are five very good reasons why website content is important for your business.

It helps to build customer trust

Create quality content related to your niche and you show that you know what you’re talking about. It’s clear to customers that you understand your industry, your products and services.

Content is also an opportunity to showcase who you are as a brand. You can present the unique personality that sets you apart from your competitors.

A website filled with high quality content helps potential customers get to know your company better. You build their trust – which means they’re much more likely to part with their hard-earned cash.

It boosts search engine visibility

High quality content is one of the most important ranking factors for websites. This is because search engines want to serve the most relevant results to searchers. And they do this by crawling website content, assessing it for quality, relevance and authority.

Your existing web pages are helping you to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs) for a variety of search terms. But your web content can help you to rank for even more.

More ranking keywords means more chances that users will come across your website when searching for solutions to their problems.

It feeds other content marketing efforts

The content you put on your website is a great basis for your content marketing efforts elsewhere.

You can split a blog post into a week’s worth of social media posts. Or use your latest infographic as part of your next email marketing campaign. When you commit to creating quality web content on the regular, you never run out of things to say.

It generates leads and conversions

Any website content worth its salt helps drive traffic to your website. Using SEO know-how and relevant keywords, it introduces new leads to your brand and website.

Another feature of high quality content is the call to action (CTA). After reading, viewing or interacting with your content, users are encouraged to take action. They click and move further into the conversion funnel.

It can earn backlinks for your site

Earn natural backlinks from trusted websites and you boost the visibility of your website. In the eyes of a search engine, a backlink is a recommendation. Someone other than you thinks that your site is really great!

High quality content – filled with fresh ideas and valuable insights – helps you get backlinks. Because this is the type of content that people like to share.

The standout features of high quality website content

So we’ve covered why website content is important. But what does high quality web content actually look like? Here are the standout features that turn average website content into content that reaps all the benefits above.

Built for your audience

The best web content starts with a good understanding of your audience. Who are they? What are they interested in? What worries keep them awake at night?

If you already have buyer personas then start with these. If not, you need to do some research into your target market before you start devising content.

Once you know who you’re talking to, you can craft content that will be genuinely helpful or interesting to your ideal customer. You can also create content suited to their stage in the buyer journey.

Let’s explain what we mean by that. Customers move through various stages before they make a purchase:

Problem aware > Solution aware > Product aware > Decision

Imagine you run a double glazing business. A person at the product-aware stage knows that they want to buy new, double-glazed windows. They type the search into Google and your website and products appear in search results.

But how about customers who don’t yet know that they need double glazed windows? You can use blog content to target users in the problem-aware stage too.

These users might be searching for terms like make a house warmer or save money on energy bills. If you craft high quality website content related to these search terms, you give another segment of your target market the information and resources they’re looking for.

Build content around the needs of your buyer personas at each stage of the buyer journey and you’ll find it much easier to engage and convert users.

Unique

In years gone by it may have been enough to produce short, generalised pieces of content. These little titbits did well at driving traffic in the early days of the internet. But now, both users and search engine algorithms are more demanding and discerning.

There’s a lot of content on the internet. So if you want yours to stand out it has to offer something different. We’re not saying you have to reinvent the wheel. But you’re more likely to reap SEO and brand awareness benefits if you stand out from the competition by providing something new.

That might mean creating an infographic that reveals the most up-to-date information on an industry topic. Or an ebook that contains research conducted by your brand. Or a blog article that covers a subject more comprehensively than any other website up to now.

High quality web content is always unique, providing new information or a different perspective for your audience.

Clever use of keywords

Any content you create should be created for your audience, first and foremost. But when putting your content together you should also consider keywords and SEO. By using specific keywords in your content, you increase its visibility.

Start by researching keywords via a tool like Google Keyword Planner. You’re looking for terms related to your topic that have the perfect balance of search volume and competition. Once you’ve decided on a relevant keyword phrase (or a handful of phrases), you can add them to your content.

For blog content, put keywords in your article title and at least one H2 heading. Also include them in the body of the article a handful of times, ensuring that it feels natural and reads well. For images and videos, include your primary keyword phrase in the title and alt text.

Just remember that keyword stuffing can really harm your website ranking. So use keywords cleverly and sparingly.

Created by a human

An AI tool like ChatGPT can create content in seconds. But is it any good?

In our experience, AI content often lacks substance. It’s pretty poorly written and contains factual mistakes. It also falls down on two other markers of high quality content: in-depth research and real-life experience.

While we think AI can play a really useful role as a brainstorming buddy, we definitely wouldn’t recommend simply tapping in a blog title and letting AI do the rest – at least for now.

If you’re going to outsource content creation to anyone, pick a professional content writer, graphic designer or videographer, not an AI bot.

Engaging

The best website content engages a user from the get-go.

That means writing compelling titles, hooking a user right from the start and communicating information as clearly as possible. Don’t use 10 words where two will do. And write more or less as you speak.

You should choose shorter words over longer ones. Use contractions (e.g. I’m instead of I am). And address the reader directly.

Visuals have a big part to play, too. Professional quality photos, infographics, animations, videos, charts – all of these things catch a user’s eye and help bring your content to life.

A call to action

Every piece of content needs a call to action (or a CTA). This is where you tell your audience what you want them to do next.

It’s an essential feature of high quality web content because it keeps users on your site, exploring your products or services, and generally getting to know you better.

You might want users to read related blog posts, sign up for your newsletter, book a demo or get in touch with your team. Whatever you want your audience to do, include a link and make it clear what users will gain by clicking.

Consistency

Making a success of your content marketing strategy takes time. You don’t tend to see results straight away. But remember that you can only increase website visibility if you post new content consistently.

When you add high quality web content to your site regularly, users get the best, most up-to-date insight. There’s an SEO benefit too. Google sees that your site is active and authoritative – and is more likely to feature it on the first page of SERPs.

That doesn’t mean posting every week if the quality of your content will suffer. Instead, it means creating a content schedule based upon realistic timescales – and sticking to it.

There’s another way in which high quality web content needs to be consistent – and that’s in its branding and tone of voice (TOV).

You want users to feel that they’re interacting with the same brand personality at every touch point – across your website, content, ads, socials and emails. So, whether you’re writing, filming or designing content, keep your branding and TOV top of mind.

In conclusion

There are lots of reasons why website content is important. It helps you to build trust and loyalty with your customer base. It gives your website an SEO boost. And it helps turn website browsers into buyers.

If you want to make high quality web content part of your organic marketing strategy, you first need to make sure that your website is set up for it. Then take your time to create content you know your audience will want to read, watch or view.

Want to add videos, infographics or a blog to your website? Then get in touch with the Radical Web Design team to chat about your project.