At the Google SEO Office Hours Hangout, Google’s John Mueller provided a broader definition of what content quality really means. His definition expands what it means to have quality content and can help publishers who have issues with content quality.
In general, when the SEO industry focuses on content quality, it often focuses on improving things related to EAT, expertise, authoritativeness, and credibility.
Mueller’s shared definition of content quality includes and exceeds EAT.
Why Content Quality Matters
The quality of your content can affect your site’s ranking, both positively and negatively. Google will no longer trust your site, and you may even stop seeing rich results for your website.
For years, the SEO industry has focused on author signals, the amount of ads on the page, and the text of the content itself.
But what Mueller said about content quality encompasses and extends those signals.
Screenshot by John Mueller explaining what content quality is
QUALITY CONTENT AND SEO QUESTIONS
Questions asked in Google Hangouts were about the relative importance of technical SEO and content quality.
Here are the questions:
“It has long been said that making technical improvements is less important to SEO than creating quality content.”
Mueller stopped reading questions to talk about the importance of technical SEO and started talking about what quality content really means.
This is how Google defines quality content
John Mueller addressed the issue of quality content and explained that it is more than just text.
Muller explained:
“When it comes to content quality, we don’t just mean the text of an article.
It really is the quality of your entire website.
This includes everything from layout to design.
For example, how you display it on the page, how you integrate images, how you work at speed, all these factors come into play. ”
For years, Google has been saying that images matter and has published a developer page on how to properly use images for image optimization and SEO.
Many people in the SEO industry downplay the importance of page speed, but Mueller said page speed affects how Google views the quality of your content.
Most importantly, he points out, how everything looks on the page affects how Google sees the quality of your content.
This is a big deal because it expands the definition of what it means to have quality content.
Mueller continued:
“So you can’t just look purely at the text of an article and ignore everything else around it and say this is high quality text.
We really want to see the whole website. ”
The definition of quality content has a wide range
Mueller’s definition of quality content is much broader than commonly understood.
Search on Google or Bing using the search term “What is quality content?” reveals many websites that answer the question by saying it’s all about the text.
But according to Google, quality content means more than just text. This includes images, layout, all display methods, page speed, and other factors. Some of these factors relate to user experience and how information is delivered to site visitors.
Quote
Content quality is more than text: layout, design and images
View at the 23:12 minute mark
