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8 Factors That Determine Quality Content for Local Businesses

David Wells

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For local businesses trying to rank higher in local search results, creating high-quality content should be a top priority. But what exactly makes content “high quality” for a local business audience?

With AI fast changing businesses’ approach to content, it is worth reminding ourselves that ultimately what Google is looking for when it ranks pages is quality content that is going to provide value to the person searching a query.

This blog takes an in-depth look through the various factors that influence whether Google considers a piece of content to be high quality or otherwise. We’ve determined eight key issues that you need to get right when you create your content.

Expertise and Experience (The E-E-A-T principle)

Let’s start by looking at the major factor that Google itself tells you is most relevant to content quality – that’s the E-E-A-T principle. This acronym highlights the importance of: expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to the process of analysing a piece of content – and it spells out that kind of content you should be trying to achieve.

  • Expertise – showing legitimate in-depth knowledge on the subject matter
  • Experience – demonstrating the author has genuine first-hand life experience with the subject, for example, having used a product or having visit a destination
  • Authoritativeness – on an authoritative site, showing reliability
  • Trustworthiness – showing both the author and the site can be trusted

Engaging Headlines

Heading are important. They are useful to the reader and they provide essentially a map through a piece of content for Google to understand it. And of course, the headline is the most important of the headings. A creative headline can be eye-catching and draw in a reader, so it’s worth thinking about it and adding something strong.

Strong Visuals

UX should be at the heart of the work you do on content. Remember the quality of a piece of content is not just about the text, but how it is laid out too. Think about the way you naturally read articles and work from there.

Bulky text isn’t a good look, so use every ounce of creativity you’ve got to design a content page that’s well structured and appealing to the eye.

Include high-quality photos and videos showcasing your business, offerings, local community, etc.Avoid long paragraphs and throw in a few additional headers and bullet points, especially when listing.

Proofread

Don’t fall down on the simple stuff. When you’ve spent a long time producing a great piece of content, your priority might be sharing it with the world – but don’t forget the principle of proofreading first, and the proofreading again for good measure.

Google doesn’t like to see content riddled with spelling errors and mistakes – but you know who hates it even more: your readers.

High-Quality Natural Links

The importance of links pointing to your website has been well-established and it remains a significant part of process of building an authoritative and trustworthy site. But what is often overlooked is the importance of getting outbound links right.

You should only ever link to reputable, high-quality sources and this is something any experienced SEO will be aware of. However, your links should also come from natural phrases within the text, so not just standard terms such as “click here” for instance.

Know your Audience

Whenever you come to create a piece of content, you should know exactly who your audience is that you are writing for. A piece of content that’s condescending can put off an expert audience – one laden with jargon and industry terms can alienate a less experienced reader.

Understand who you’re creating content for, and let that inform the piece that you produce. This is a major way to ensure that not only is your content high quality – but that it is the right kind of quality for the people who are going to be reading it.

Think Shareability

Is your piece of content going to be shared? This is another question that you need to be thinking about as a part of the content creation process. Content needs to be built around plenty of share value, so it helps to consider whether or not your social media followers would have an interest in it.

Try reading your content back as a consumer to see whether or not it talks to you. There should be something insightful, interesting, or valuable within every piece of content you produce.

Answering Search Intent

It is important to make sure that every piece of content serves a purpose. In a sense, you can think of it as a way to answer a question or provide information – but ultimately content should be designed with the idea of fulfilling a need from the user.

You need to base your content around a query or a search intent so that when someone lands on your page, they can immediately see that your page is what they have been looking for.

At Artemis, we are experts in content creation and content as a part of your overall SEO strategy. We stay ahead of the game thanks to our technical SEO wizardry, and we allow this to inform all of the content we produce. If you’re interested in benefitting from our years of experience in the industry, don’t hesitate to contact us today.