“Publish high-quality content!” YES. SURE.
But here’s an important question: What the heck is high-quality content?
Doesn’t that sound too vague?
In fact, there’s a good chance that the majority of people in marketing don’t really know the high-quality content definition (if there exists one).
And it’s okay. After all, “good quality” is quite subjective.
What’s not subjective though is bad-quality content. They are bad from every angle.
So, instead of asking “is my content good”, ask if it’s bad. That’s easier to answer.
Here are 14+ warning signs that your website’s content is bad in quality for the visitors and search engines:
1. You Know It Already
Somewhere deep down, you know it already.
You know that some of your old content, in particular, are outright poor and needs to be either deleted or improved.
2. How’s The Bounce Rate?
If the bounce rate of the landing page is high, one of the reasons behind that could be the quality of the content.
Maybe the visitors don’t like the content that’s why they are leaving without engaging with the website.
Recommended Read: 19 Steps to Reduce Bounce Rate
3. Exit Rate Is High
If people are leaving your website after reaching a particular webpage, there’s a good chance that the content on that webpage is bad.
4. No Visual Appeal
Content is just as much about images, Infographics, and videos as texts.
If your content is all texts and nothing visual, it doesn’t necessarily qualify to be called “good”.
Visitors need visual content to understand better and to have a breather from a large block of overwhelming texts.
5. No Engagement Factor
Online, people want to consume content that is engaging in nature… that sounds friendly.
If the content is otherwise, it will be perceived as boring; hence, bad in quality.
Recommended Read: How to Make Your Content More Engaging (15 Practical Ways)
6. Failing To Achieve Objectives
You have produced this content for a reason. There’s definitely a purpose or goal behind it.
If you aren’t seeing the expected conversion, something is wrong.
7. Stuffed With Keywords
Yes, including keywords in your content is STILL important to rank better on SERP. However, taking it to an extreme end is a BIG mistake.
Content, stuffed with too many keywords that break its natural flow, is of the worst quality.
8. Unnecessarily Long
I can stretch this post into a 3000-word article. But I won’t because I can say the same thing in just 2 minutes.
Respecting people’s time is VERY important.
If your content is unnecessarily long, it’s bad in quality.
9. Poor Organic Traffic
If it has been more than a couple of months since you published this content, and it still isn’t bringing you decent organic traffic – it definitely isn’t as good in quality as you thought it is.
10. Low Session Duration
How much time are visitors spending on this landing page?
If it’s low, there might be three reasons for that:
- The introduction of the content is bad.
- The content isn’t formatted properly.
- Check the #11 sign below
All these reasons mean your content is of bad quality.
11. Bad Quality Traffic
If your content is attracting bad quality, non-targeted traffic, it will clearly fail its purpose.
Meaning, it’s really of no use for your content marketing goals.
12. Website Traffic Is Declining
Nothing could make it as obvious as this one.
If your website traffic is going down, your content isn’t doing its job. Likely because it’s bad in quality.
13. Too Promotional
Even if you want to sell something, it’s no good reason to make your content too promotional.
In fact, depending on your niche, your Top and Middle of the Funnel content shouldn’t be promotional at all.
In lack of brand value and trust, you will only shun away the new visitors.
14. You Didn’t Spend Too Much Time On It
Creating good quality content takes time to complete… even for the best content writers out there.
You need time to do research, come up with alternative headlines, edit, optimize, proofread, and more.
If you aren’t taking sufficient time, your content would assumingly be bad in quality.
These are 14 signs that your website has bad-quality content.
Aside from these, other evident signs include:
- Spelling errors; bad grammar
- Poor formatting/structure
- No internal linking
- You’re discussing the features, not the benefits
- No or fewer comments
- Direct feedback from readers that the content is bad
Fix the problems immediately before they do more damage.
(How many of these signs do you see in your website content? Tweet to Spell Out Marketing. Let me know.)
