Quality Content: How to Publish Writing That Ranks

Quality content is valuable, readable, relevant, unique, and engaging for your target audience. From ideation to optimization, here’s how to create quality content that positions your brand as an authority.

Publishing high-quality content on your website is one of the most effective ways to take your SEO from “eh” to “awesome.”

Whether you write it yourself, leverage a team member, or outsource to an agency, quality content can make your brand an industry thought leader.

We tapped HawkSEM Senior Content Marketing Manager Caroline Cox to learn how to create quality content that ranks.

What is quality content?

Content quality is valuable, well-written, relevant blogs or articles on a website.

Google aims to reward high-quality content that demonstrates the qualities of E-E-A-T: expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

This means helpful content that gives something of value to the user experience and nails search intent is more likely to get you a better search ranking than something more low-quality.

Content quality is typically measured by:

• Relevance: It addresses the needs, interests, and pain points of the target audience.
•  Expertise and accuracy: The content is written or vetted by subject matter experts to provide expert insights.
• Readability: The writing is engaging and well-written.
• Usefulness: The reader can apply the content to a real problem or situation.
• Originality: The content is unique and original, offering an authentic perspective.
• Depth: Some people may want a high-level overview of a topic for beginners, while others may be looking for an in-depth analysis of something more specific.
• Human-centeredness: Great content is written for users (not just search engines like Google or Microsoft’s Bing).

Of course, when it comes to SEO, quality content is still measurable. We look at things like organic rankings, traffic, links, and shares to assess whether or not our content is hitting the mark.

Furthermore, you’ll want to pay attention to your content successes as they relate to business goals such as conversions or qualified leads.

Why is quality content important?

Quality content builds trust and credibility with your audience. By publishing valuable content, you can attract and retain customers, build brand awareness, establish authority, improve search engine rankings, and drive sales and conversions.

“Frankly, quality content is important because the internet is full of low-quality content,” says Cox.

“Not only does publishing quality content show search engines and your target audience that your business is credible and trustworthy, but it gives you an edge over competitors whose content isn’t as well written, educational, and informative.”

Can AI content be considered high-quality?

Yes, AI-generated content can be considered high-quality when used alongside human strategy and oversight.

Search engine algorithms focus on how helpful, accurate, and valuable it is to users rather than whether it was written by AI or a human.

So, where does that leave AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini for content integration?

In a recent 16-month experiment, SE Ranking tracked how AI-generated content performed on newly created websites.

More than 70% of the AI-generated pages were indexed within the first 36 days, and 80% of the sites ranked for at least 100 keywords.

The sites’ impressions grew throughout the first three months — until inevitably plummeting out of the top 100 ranked pages.

The findings suggest that AI can help produce content that gets indexed and earns initial visibility, but long-term success depends on ongoing optimization and human oversight.

AI writing tools are just that — tools for idea generation, outlines, research, and editing. But it requires human guidance to drive a lasting impact.

How to create quality content

“In my experience, high-quality content provides value to the reader while being thorough, factually accurate, and up to date,” says Cox.

“That’s why elements like research, fact-checking, editing, and consistently updating content are so key to high-quality content marketing.”

Here’s a complete list of how to create quality content:

1. Conduct preliminary research

Before writing, content creators should invest in in-depth research, including:

• Audience research
• Competitor research
• Keyword research

Audience research

Lean on experts on your team who best understand your current audience to get an idea of who your content will speak to.

It’s essential to understand the pain points and desires of your audience to match intent and provide value in your content.

A helpful exercise is to build an ideal client persona (ICP): a description of the group of people you most want to attract to your product or service.

While you can get as detailed as you want, thorough personas often include:

• Name
• Photo or graphic representing the person
• Company type or industry
• Job title
• Key responsibilities
• Pain points
• Helpful demographic info (like age, salary, city or region, etc.)

Further reading: How to Create an Ideal Customer Profile (+ Template)

Competitor and market research

Competitor and market research helps you understand what content already exists, where opportunities lie, and how you can create something more valuable than what’s currently ranking.

Start by identifying the top-ranking pages for your target keywords. Analyze the content to determine:

• The topics and subtopics they cover
• The depth and quality of information provided
• The format (blog post, guide, video, infographic, etc.)
• Common questions they answer
• Content gaps or areas they overlook
• Opportunities to add unique insights, examples, data, or expert perspectives

Pay attention to patterns: If every top-ranking article covers a specific topic, search engines likely view that information as important to satisfying user intent.

At the same time, avoid simply replicating competitor content. The goal is to create something that is more helpful, comprehensive, up-to-date, or unique than what already exists.

Further reading: How to do an SEO Competitor Analysis: 5 Easy Steps +Top Tools to Use 

Keyword research

Keyword research can tell you what keywords you’re currently ranking for, what keywords bring users to your site, the most popular keywords for your industry, and more.

Identifying your best SEO keywords will also inform the topics you cover.

Conduct your research by listing out topics relevant to your business. Next, determine the keywords that would fall under those categories.

You can then use an SEO tool (like Google Keyword Planner) to find out the monthly search volume. You can also go directly to the SERP to see how you stack up against your competition.

Ideally, you should have a mix of short and long-tail keywords.

Short-tail keywords are more general terms (perfect for a pillar page on your website), whereas long-tail keywords are the more niche, specific subtopics that fall under those general terms.

2. Identify and document your brand style

Your brand’s voice and tone are illustrated through your:

• Website
• Content marketing
• Ad copy
• Social media
• And more

These things are reflected in how you speak to your audience. Your voice and tone should make sense for your audience as well as the overall ethos of your business.

To identify your voice and tone, look at your target personas:

• How do they talk?
• Are they more formal or casual?
• How much time do they have to consume your content?

All of these elements can factor into your voice and tone.

Next, revisit your company’s mission and values. Some businesses use bright colors, slang, and other nontraditional marketing elements in their branding.

Others have an audience that prefers a minimalist design, a professional demeanor, and no-nonsense verbiage. By blending together the right combination of elements, you can define your voice and tone.

3. Align content with audience intent

Before diving into content creation, it’s essential to understand the motivation behind a search query (keyword).

What exactly is the user looking for? Offer them the most direct answer, along with thorough explanations and actionable insights to fully address their question.

Search engines have become increasingly sophisticated at evaluating whether content satisfies user intent. So if a user returns to the search results page to find a better answer, your content didn’t fulfil their needs.

To identify intent, examine the SERP for the target keyword and make a note of the content formats, such as:

• Informational guides
• Product pages
• Comparison articles
• Videos
• Local business listings

This signals the kind of content users (and the search engine) prefers for that specific query.

4. Use SMEs or highlight your expertise for “information gain”

Information gain is a concept introduced by Google that measures the unique value your content adds beyond what’s already available in competing, existing content.

This is an elaborate way of emphasizing the importance of originality and value.

The best way to provide information gain is by offering expert quotes and insights through subject matter experts (SMEs), as well as original data.

If the content creator is the subject matter expert, be sure to make that expertise evident and share a unique perspective and angle to the topic.

5. Write content with answer engines in mind

Users are changing the way they search for information online, resulting in a boom in AI engines.

Between Google’s AI Overviews, AI chatbots (like ChatGPT), and AI assistants, quality content must not only be optimized for search engines — but answer engines as well.

To do this:

• Answer questions clearly and immediately. Write direct answers at the beginning of sections.
• Incorporate FAQs. Frequently asked questions can help address common user concerns and provide AI systems with clear, scannable answers.
• Target conversational queries. Users increasingly search using natural language. Incorporate these question-based phrases naturally throughout your content.

6. Format for readability

While long-form content often performs best on the SERP, it’s difficult to read 1000 words or more on a computer or phone screen.

With that in mind, formatting content to be more easily skimmed actually helps readers absorb more in the long run.

To do this:

• Include hierarchical headings
• Add high-quality images
• Use bullets and lists
• Write short paragraphs

7. Have someone else edit (if possible)

Editing is an important step to take to turn a piece of content from good into great.

This editor could be your boss or a colleague, and it doesn’t have to be the same person each time. If you’re on a small team or are a team of one, you can be your own editor. Just make sure you don’t edit your piece directly after finishing the draft.

It’s also a good idea to print out the piece and read it that way — the change of format often helps you spot errors you may not have seen on the screen.

No matter who edits, make sure they know what to look for. A good editor can see both the forest and the trees. This means that they’re looking for an overall solid piece of content that’s thorough, educational, and covers the topic properly.

They also should be on the lookout for grammar and spelling errors, missing words, and an inconsistent tone.

8. Repurpose your content

Blog articles can be a huge asset to your website for all the reasons above. But don’t think that blog content is all you need to create.

Good content also comes in the form of social media, guides, case studies, checklists, ebooks, white papers, webinars, podcasts — the list goes on.

Once you’ve built a quality content marketing foundation, you can experiment with new formats to see how your audience responds and how it affects your content performance.

You can also create complementary content that covers one topic in a variety of ways, with each piece linking to the others.

9. Refresh content regularly

Even the best content will grow stale over time. To make sure your content maintains its quality, revisit it on a regular basis to update links, images, statistics, examples, and any information that may have changed since publication.

Refreshing content also gives you an opportunity to improve readability, expand sections that may no longer be comprehensive, incorporate new industry developments, and align the piece with evolving search behavior.

A well-maintained article is more likely to remain useful to readers, earn backlinks, and continue performing in search results.

Further reading: Content Refresh: How to Update & Republish Content For Higher Rankings

10. Prioritize timeliness over perfection for emerging topics

Publishing thoughtful, engaging content should always be the end-goal.

However, some marketers are noticing that publishing “good-enough” content early — then updating and expanding it as the topic evolves — can help brands earn visibility in search results and AI-generated answers.

In other words, being the first to cover an emerging topic can give your content time to build authority. As the topic grows in popularity, continue to add insights and depth to your strong foundation for ongoing rankings.

The takeaway

Although search continues to evolve with AI and answer engines, the fundamentals haven’t changed.

The content that performs best demonstrates expertise, satisfies search intent, and offers original value that users can’t find elsewhere.

Whether you’re writing content yourself, using AI to assist you in the process, or partnering with a content marketing agency, be sure to focus on publishing content that’s accurate, engaging, and worth revisiting over time.

We’ve helped tons of companies, big and small, take their content marketing to the next level. Want to build a stronger marketing strategy? Let’s chat.

This article has been updated and was originally published in July, 2023.