Google’s search engine is one of the most powerful and popular tools on the internet. It helps people find what they’re looking for, but it also determines what is considered valuable content. Google uses a set of guidelines to evaluate every site that wants to be included in its index and ranked highly in search results. If you want your site to rank well on Google, then according to their standards for quality content:
According to Google, it is both a science and an art.
Quality content is a combination of both art and science. In order to understand what makes quality content, you have to first understand the definition of good and bad content.
Bad Content: Bad content is any type of information that has been written in a way that does not help the reader or inform them about a subject at all. For example, if you write about how great your product or service is, but do not provide any examples of how it works or why someone should buy from you, then this would be considered bad content since it does not serve any purpose for the reader (or Google).
Good Content: Good content goes beyond just being entertaining or informative; it also serves as an aid to people trying to find answers online. If someone searches “how do I make cupcakes?” on Google and comes across your blog post titled “How To Make Delicious Cupcakes,” then they can see that this blog post provides answers for their query and will therefore increase their trust in both you as well as Google’s ability at delivering relevant results when searching topics related to cooking and baking alike!
Originality
Originality is often a key component of quality content. When you are writing, always consider whether what you have written is original and unique to your site or brand.
This can be difficult because there will always be multiple versions of the same piece of information online. For example, if you want to write an article about how to make a cupcake, there are hundreds of recipes with step-by-step instructions that could match what you want to write (and may already exist on your website). However, if you include some unique twist or angle that has not been done before then it will likely stand out from the rest and attract visitors who are looking for something different.
It’s also important that you link out frequently in order to give credit where credit is due (or avoid getting penalized by Google).
Specificity and readability
- Use specific terms. Google’s quality guidelines encourage you to use the keywords that people would search for in order to find your content. You can do this by including those terms in your title, subheadings, and throughout your content.
- Avoid fluff. Quality content is as direct and concise as possible so it can be understood easily by readers who have just one goal: to find answers or solutions to their problems.
- Use the inverted pyramid style of writing most often used by journalists where you describe the most important information first, then add details until you reach an ending statement summarizing all points made throughout your article. This ensures that readers don’t get lost along the way as they read through lengthy paragraphs or pages of text without any breaks in between sections of information which can happen if there were no subheadings used within paragraphs themselves (for example: “Section 1: Introduction” followed by “Section 2: Main Ideas”).
- Make sure there are bullet points within each paragraph so readers know what topics are being discussed at a glance when skimming down through articles online without getting lost due to too much reading time required per sentence before moving onto next topic sentence(s).
Honesty and transparency
Google has a strong commitment to transparency, and this is reflected in their guidelines for quality content. While it’s not required that you be 100% transparent, Google does require that you be honest and transparent when describing your business, products and services. This means that you need to accurately represent who you are as a business, what you do and what your offerings are. You should also make sure that any facts or claims made about your products or services are accurate so that consumers aren’t misled by false information.
The importance of honesty and transparency is also reflected in the guidelines for trustworthiness which states: “Demonstrate expertise through content quality / performance metrics (e.g., engagement rate)”; “Demonstrate expertise through proven experience (e.g., number of years in business)”; “Create useful content–not just promotional material.”
Richness of content
We all know the importance of having a lot of content on your website, but what does this mean for Google? If you want your site to be found by Google, then you have to have lots of quality content. Here are some examples:
- If you create an e-book or video series, that counts as one piece of quality content (as long as it’s good).
- If you post an article every week on your blog or add new posts regularly each month, that also counts as one piece of quality content.
Freshness of content
One of your roles as a content creator is to ensure that any information you publish is up-to-date, relevant and current. This will help Google assess the quality of your information.
It’s important that you check and double-check the facts in all material written for publication on your website. If there are errors or omissions, update this content as soon as possible so it remains relevant and accurate, otherwise it could lead to negative SEO consequences.
Reputability
Reputability is an indicator of the trustworthiness of a website. Google evaluates reputability based on several factors, including whether or not the site has links to it from other credible sites, whether or not the site has an established history online, and whether or not it uses spammy tactics like keyword stuffing or hidden text. Reputation can be built over time by creating content that addresses users’ needs in a useful way.
Google also takes into consideration things like user reviews; this is why review comments are displayed next to search results for certain queries (like “restaurant near me”). It will also take into account how much traffic your site gets from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Expertise, authority, trustworthiness (E-A-T)
In Google’s eyes, content is not only useful, but it also needs to be trustworthy. According to Google, there are three pillars of trustworthiness:
- Expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T)
- The reputation of the site on which your article resides (which includes factors like Domain Authority and Page Authority)
- The author’s reputation on that same site
The best way to have Google consider your site valuable is to create quality content that users want and need.
- Originality. The idea is that the content should be unique, not just regurgitated from some other source.
- Specificity and readability. This means that the information provided by your site will be detailed and easily understandable by humans (and search engines). You can test this for yourself by running your page through an online text-to-speech tool like Google Voice Search or DeepL; if it sounds like gibberish to you, chances are it’s too dense for human consumption as well.
- Honesty and transparency: This means being upfront about who’s behind your website, what you do with the data they provide you, who funded your research or study—basically anything that would give readers pause if they knew it was there (or left out). Your whole purpose as a content provider is to help people find answers on whatever topic interests them, so don’t make them waste time searching elsewhere simply because there’s something fishy going on behind the curtain at headquarters!
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of how Google defines quality content. You should always be striving to create valuable, unique content that is relevant to your users and helps them achieve their goals.