Content quality is the true king. Only by investing in quality will companies begin to see real results from their content. Learn what content quality means, why it matters and how to achieve it for your brand.

1. The Hallmarks of Content
Quality
Why they matter and how to achieve them
March 29, 2014
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2. What we mean by quality
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“What is quality content?
Ultimately, the consumer decides.”
– Joe Chernov
VP of Content, Hubspot

4. Quality guiding principles
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The definition of quality
varies across brands
and audiences — but
some basic guiding
principles govern
content quality.
Relevance
Structure
Credibility
Accuracy &
Timeliness
Clarity,
Readability
& Focus
Findability &
Organization
Tone &
Style
Overall
Experience &
Effectiveness

5. Why invest in quality?
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Quality supports your brand image. It showcases your
commitment to professionalism and excellence. It helps you
communicate your brand pillars and your brand personality.
Quality helps you communicate clearly. Upholding quality
standards ensures you get your message across and your
customers hear you loud and clear.
Quality supports your goals. More engagement with your
marketing tactics, better search engine results, more
efficiency in service — quality communications are more
effective communications, making everything you do in your
branding and marketing more successful.

6. Defining & enforcing quality
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CONTENT
The 8 Hallmarks of Content Quality

7. Defining & enforcing quality
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RELEVANCE
Relevance
What it means
• Delivering the right content to the right
audience at the right place and time
• Helping users find the content that best
matches their needs
How to achieve it
• Get to know your audiences.
• Understand how to interpret your data.
• Put things in context with how audiences
think.
• Be as original as you can.
• Segment and personalize content as
much as possible.
More
on
relevance:
h-p://hub.am/1jCc5GW

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STRUCTURE
Structure
What it means
• How you organize your information to
meet your communication goals
• How to model content for efficiency and
usability
How to achieve it
• Don’t bury the lead.
• Focus on one topic per paragraph.
• Let your thesis drive everything.
• Build relationships/transitions between
paragraphs.
• Keep citations in a supporting role.
• Think of content’s essential parts.
More
on
structure:
h-p://hub.am/1ihDgUB

9. Defining & enforcing quality
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CREDIBLITY
Credibility
What it means
• Earning consumers’ trust
• Communicating unique expertise
How to achieve it
• Be as objective as possible.
• Make content useful and usable.
• Make it easy to verify facts.
• Be consistent.
More
on
credibility:
h-p://hub.am/1gOrVNY

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ACCURACY
Accuracy & Timeliness
What it means
• Angling your content to be relevant to
audiences right now
• Checking details and citing sources to
ensure correctness of information
How to achieve it
• Stay nimble and provide information in
context of news or trends.
• Avoid riding coat-tails or blatant
newsjacking.
• Cite sources and attribute statistics and
any potentially questionable facts.
• Avoid sloppiness: check names, dates,
places.
More
on
accuracy
&
Hmeliness:
h-p://hub.am/1ihDgUB

11. Defining & enforcing quality
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CLARITY
Clarity, Readability &
Focus
What it means
• Hook and keep your audience by making
your point quickly
• Clearly communicate your message to
achieve your goals
How to achieve it
• Make it easy to understand.
• Don’t use 10 words if you can use five.
• Use a proven structure.
• Make content scannable.
• Stay on topic.
More
on
clarity,
readability
&
focus:
h-p://hub.am/NxvWcS

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FINDABILITY
Findability & Organization
What it means
• Structuring your content to help users
meet their goals and find what they need
• Guiding readers to where you want them
to go and find
How to achieve it
• Understand what users are looking for
and what words they use to search for it.
• Use highlighted content and cross-linking
to guide users on their “adventure.”
• Treat every page as page one.
• Support effective search with keywords,
meta data and a hierarchical URL
structure.
More
on
findability:
h-p://hub.am/1chKxiP

13. Defining & enforcing quality
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TONE&STYLE
Tone & Style
What it means
• Defining the personality of your brand
• Telling your story consistently across
channels
How to achieve it
• Define your tone of voice.
• Choose words based on your audience.
• Vary your sentence structure, but be
consistent overall in length and flow.
• Be consistent in your style and grammar.
• Focus on your goals for each piece of
content.
More
on
tone
&
style:
h-p://hub.am/P4Ykob

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EFFECTIVENESS
Overall Experience &
Effectiveness
What it means
• How your content makes people feel
• How effectively your content achieves its
goals (and helps consumers achieve
theirs)
How to achieve it
• Use clear, benefits-oriented language.
• Match compelling visuals with written
content.
• Use clear calls-to-action.
• Be forthright and open in your messaging
(avoid wishy-washy).
More
on
experience
&
effecHveness:
h-p://hub.am/PkpS97

15. Defining & enforcing quality
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16. What does quality look like for your brand?
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Define your quality
pillars.
What should your content
always be? Fun? Provocative?
Original?
Determine your style.
Set guidelines for your tone of
voice, style and usage
Set baseline expectations.
Decide the minimum
requirements for an
acceptable piece of content.

17. Measure where you are today.
• Audit your content.
• Use content assessment tools
to quantifiably assess how
current content measures up to
your standards.
• Set goals for improvement and
put processes and tools in
place to achieve those goals.
• Use measurement to
communicate the importance of
quality internally.
Download
our
sample
content
assessment
tool.

18. Get your team on board.
Explain the need for quality in
business terms.
Get buy-in from senior
managers and leaders.
Incentivize quality content
(contests, recognition) and
encourage participation.
Launch committee to steer
strategy and enforce standards.
Communicate
improvement and
correlate it to
marketing success.
Train teams and evangelize
guidelines and tools.

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20. Let us help you with your
content quality!
Get in touch to learn how Suite Seven can help you develop a content
strategy for focus, standards and sustainability.
Stacey King Gordon, President
510.292.4469
stacey@suiteseven.com
www.suiteseven.com
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