What defines good content? Is what’s good for you, good for other people too? When we talk about good content, we are talking about content that delivers a good experience to those looking for something specific; content that goes beyond expectations.
Making regular content nowadays is not enough anymore. It’s necessary to deliver a good experience and interactions that can be consumed faster and with quality.
According to a Google survey, 87% of content viewers say good content is personal and relevant. So, for Google users, good content is relevant to them, intellectually and sensorially stimulating, and finally, emotionally resonant. So when making content, remember these four essential elements, which I’ll describe in detail below.
The four essential elements of a good content
To be relevant, content must be suitable to what is interesting to the users. At the same time, they must find the content produced by approachable and relatable creators. According to the same Google survey, 80% of people are more open to branded content when the content is relevant to them in some way.
Translation: it’s not about what your brand wants to say, but the issues the user wants to solve.
On the intellectual side, people want content that teaches, shows new perspectives, and changes people’s perceptions positively towards something. That’s what Google wants from your content: to make an impact on people.
But above all else, again, it’s important to think first about the user and their experience.
To be sensorially stimulating, build good storytelling when producing your content. This is backed by other data from Google’s survey: 94% of people said good content tells a good story and 92% of them say good content is produced with thought and effort.
And to give emotionally resonant content to the public, it’s important to produce content that creates a real bond with your audience. According to the public that responded to Google’s survey, 85% said good content makes them feel something emotionally.
When someone consumes your content and feels something – whether it’s satisfaction for having their question answered, learning something new, feeling represented, or any other positive feeling – they will remember your brand.
So, when we build new content, we need to think that your audience should feel represented and find what they need there. When the audience doesn’t find what they want in your content, they probably won’t return to see more.
What the user expects from you
Think about the following: when you are looking for a product, do you prefer to buy from a brand that has good content and that speaks with authority on the subject, giving you the confidence that they are the best option for you; or do you prefer to have a product where the brand seems not to care about proper communication with their clients?
Remember to keep track of your data, see what type of content is most visited, where there was more conversion, the bounce rate, where you can get good insights into what isn’t working and what could be even better, check the engagement, and so on.
Above all, always remember to prepare content where the audience that consumes it will like and adhere to it and not what search engines and bots will do with the content. This is something that Google itself makes clear on the Webmaster Guideline. When we please the user, we are pleasing the search engines.