Creating content is easy; creating compelling content is much harder. Quality content is an important part of eCommerce success. It drives traffic to your site and has the potential to be shared across social media platforms, granting it exposure to a wide audience. It may not turn a visitor into a conversion with one read, but consistent quality blog posts will inspire confidence in your authority and promote your brand. They are sort of a soft sell, giving people a positive impression of your business and making them more likely to patronize it in the future.
When trying to improve content, most people will pore through analyses of previous posts to see what worked and what didn’t. Looking at your own data is one thing, but there’s a lot to be said for crunching some big numbers. It gives you an idea of things that work that you may not have tried before. We took a look at some data collected by various organizations and tried to get a “big picture” of what makes quality content. Here’s what we found:
Spare no Detail
According to data from Moz, longer content tends to get interacted with much more than shorter content. Their analysis of nearly 500,000 pieces of content and their interactions shows this pretty clearly.
| Word Count | Total Shares Average | Referring Domain Links Average |
| <1,000 | 2,823 | 3.47 |
| 1,000-2,000 | 3,456 | 6.92 |
| 2,000-3,000 | 4,254 | 8.81 |
| 3,000-10,000 | 5,883 | 11.07 |
While there are many factors that influence a piece of content’s success, length clearly plays an important role. Readers want high-quality content and will choose the highest-quality content they can find. Make sure you cover your topic in depth and are providing value that others might not be. It could be the difference between going viral and getting two likes.
Make sure you are seeing this data for what it really is though. Don’t take this information and stuff your next article full of unimportant and irrelevant words in an effort to see a little more interaction. Remember that value should be the ultimate goal of your article. Value determines how positively readers will respond and what actions they will take after they finish reading your piece. The 3,000-10,000 word articles didn’t get shared the most just because they were long. They got shared the most because they provided value that other articles didn’t. They most likely needed all the words they used and definitely didn’t just write a long article for the sake of writing something long.
Stick to the Facts
Marketingland asked over 500 respondents what type of content they would be most likely to click on when looking to make a purchase. This survey included both B2C and B2B buyers. The study showed that people overwhelmingly relied on facts and data to inform their purchases, with around half of both groups preferring an article that included data and facts.
This was by far the most popular category, but blog posts and videos also fared well. B2C buyers preferred blog posts while B2B buyers preferred videos, although neither were as powerful as the data-driven content. It might not be right for every article, but including data is a great way to show that you know what you are talking about and create an authoritative voice.
Make sure that you don’t overlook the integrity of your sources in your quest to write something that people will read. Your readers are likely smarter than you think and will call you out on figures that don’t sound right. Don’t pull any old number you find on Google just because it supports the point you are trying to make. You should vet your sources to make sure they are basing their conclusion on reliable data. Once you’ve found a couple trustworthy organizations that consistently publish quality research this will become much easier.
Spend Time on Your Headline
It’s the sad truth of writing that most people will never get past your headline. This is backed up by copyblogger’s claim that eight out of ten people will read your headline, but only two will read your article. Make sure that your headline is doing everything it can to make your audience want to keep reading. Don’t know what that means? Try to have a headline that proves you have valuable content to share without giving it all away. Does your article try to answer questions? Does it offer advice for living a healthier life? Maybe it’s just a humorous take on the subject at hand? Whatever it is, make sure your title conveys that. People won’t read your article if they aren’t sure that they’ll get anything out of it.
While no rules for writing titles are written in stone, there are a few guidelines to follow that tend to result in a quality headline if properly followed. Here they are:
- Keep it short. The details are inside the article. Make sure your title clearly conveys your topic and focus without going too in depth. Readers have a short attention span and will glaze over long titles.
- Make the topic stand out. The internet is overflowing with content, does your title stand out from the crowd? Many people use RSS feeds to read news and blog posts and won’t see tags associated with it. Make sure your title is eye catching and sounds snappy when you read it while getting across everything it needs to.
- Lead with the most important words. There are a lot of studies on how people read pages like an “F,” beginning at the top left and moving right before jumping down and doing the same and finally scanning down the left side of the page. Give your title the best chance to be noticed to people who will find it relevant by starting it with the words most important to them. They might get missed if they’re somewhere else.
This obviously just scratches the surface, but it’s a good start for writing a strong title that convinces viewers to read your article.
Choose Quality Images
It isn’t enough to just have good writing. Quality content also means choosing quality images that are relevant to your article. According to this infographic, articles with relevant images receive 94% more total views than articles with only a title. Make sure your images are big enough to be displayed without getting blurry and distorted and have a clear connection to the topic you are covering.
The internet has been around for awhile, and people have come to know what stock photography looks like. People have gotten fed up with the usual pictures. There are even entire websites dedicated to mocking bad stock photography. There’s nothing wrong with using stock photography, in fact the vast majority of businesses will have to at some point, but make sure it’s not obviously stock photography. The world has had enough of people in suits standing with their arms crossed in triangle formation against a stark white background.
It’s also very important that you don’t violate copyrights with your images. It’s getting easier and easier to find copyright violations on the internet as technology continues to advance. If you continually violate copyrights, you will eventually have to deal with the consequences. If you aren’t sure where to find images or how to pick a good picture for your article, we wrote a short blog series on the subject.
Still aren’t sure you have what it takes to produce content that captivates? Leave it to us! We offer Content Marketing Services that will regularly supply your blog with high-quality, value-packed content that includes great royalty-free images with every post.