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12.04.06
Redefining Quality Content For The Web
 By
Aurora Brown
When I first started writing for the web as a freelancer, my conception of content was, naturally, focused on writing. As I was drawn further and further into the online world and my understanding of the web grew, I realized that content applies to a broader spectrum of web-related mediums besides writing. Recently I was browsing online and thinking about some forums I'd visited that were debating the definitions of quality content; needless to say, it got me thinking.
After researching the term and trying to come up with a specific definition, I realized that it just wasn't possible, because 'quality' content can't be defined by itself; it has to be defined by its audience. The main audiences concerned with quality content online are:
•
Users;
•
Search Engines;
•
Website owners, Webmasters & SEOs.
Quality content from a user's perspective
From a user's perspective, quality (or my preferred term, valuable) content, whatever the medium, is characterized by one essential factor: it fulfills the user's needs at the time they're looking for it.
While average, informational, well-structured content may be considered "quality" content, for users, true "quality" comes in the form of any unique idea, tool or medium used to give people the information they want on a given topic. This can range from humor-filled or debate-stimulating articles and crazy video blogs to interactive websites or those just offering expert advice. Essentially, any material that engages their emotions, expresses opinions, invites interaction, commentary and debate, and most importantly, meets their needs.
For example, in the beginning of my web-based writing career, I put too much emphasis on the particulars of writing: if it was well written, if it was long enough, if it was grammatically correct and well-structured, etc. I soon came to realize that, while these factors are still important, they are not necessary to creating "quality" content. Authors of wonderful, incendiary or groundbreaking articles struggling with structural and grammatical errors ranked above many of mine every time because they gave people what they were looking for.
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Quality content from a search engine's perspective
From a search engine's perspective, quality content seems to be determined by the most on-topic (relevant) and trusted material in the online community.
Relevancy is affected by the number of links to a page's content (like 'votes' for the page), the content's significance, how well the search engine algorithm understands the meaning of the page (semantics) and how well the content matches the searcher's topic.
Trust is the other part of the equation, and is determined by the types of sites that link to a webpage. For example, .edu sites are generally more trusted than other domains. Because of this, sites with lots of .edu links will probably do very well. Sites highly trusted on a particular topic, or "authority" sites, range from smaller websites with lots of 'quality' content to larger sites considered leaders in their field. The search engines love these sites, so if several link to your page's content, it gives your page validity with the search engines.
Note: this is a purposefully broad generalization; there are many subtleties that go into how a search engine determines the quality of content, but I'm not writing a book?; I'm simply taking a stab at generally understanding how the search engines analyze 'quality' content.
Click here to continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Aurora M. Brown writes for Acclivity, Inc., a search engine marketing and web
design company. Before joining Acclivity, Aurora worked as a freelance
writer and internet marketer. Her interests lie in the realm of science,
technology and social media; she co-authors the SEO and web design blog Stir
Crazy.
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