Content Quality vs Quantity

One of my favorite marketing quotes comes from Duke University behavioral psychology professor (and all around smart guy) Dan Ariely about big data…

“Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…”

The phrase directly applies to content marketing. I’m actually surprised content isn’t what he was specifically referring to. Excluding the “nobody really knows how to do it” part, it’s entirely true.

Some companies, brands, and writers are incredible content marketers. Most, though, do it because everyone else claims they are doing it, and claim they see results from it. Some content marketers produce rapid content hoping the sheer amount of content will spread like wildfire and with each small piece new inquiries, leads, and subscribers will pour in. Other content marketers obsess over spending weeks on creating the perfect piece of high-caliber content hoping that it’ll get picked up by trend-setter sites as the new gold standard. Here’s the truth:

Quality Content or Quantity of Content

Search algorithms are set to filter out poor quality content. Google has warned on the value of quality content for decades.

When it comes to how much content, what kind of content, and how long content should be? Simply remember that search engines are looking for quality content that best matches the searchers query. Those are the results that will be delivered in search results.

If search engines see your content as poor quality, they will pass you over for the highest quality content that the search engines believe best matches the query.

This means the content marketer should have the objective of creating and publishing as much high quality content as possible but not to the point where the quality of the content becomes cheapened. There are many sites that get far more search results and traffic with a lot less content than those that have tons of content simply because of the quality issue. Relevancy is also linked to quality. The content must be good but it also must be relevant.

Creating content solely for content’s sake ends up being mediocre at best…and at worst is hot garbage that only adds to the engulfed landfill that is digital clutter.

And mediocre content stems from mediocre strategy.

Creating high value and high performing content comes from a carefully crafted content strategy.

When a company or brand thinks of time as transactional, they start thinking about their content more like a “viral product.” Is your company making cheap knick-knack weak blog posts intended for one-time use for a few leads that week? Or is your brand making a handcrafted item that can’t be refunded but provides timeless (and time-worth) value? If your company is wasting someone’s time with cheap or irrelevant content, they’re unlikely to give you a second chance with their time.