Quality vs quantity for SEO content marketing

Trying to build your brand, and move it up Google’s homepage, takes time, balancing quantity of content and quality. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) gets you bumped up the page and it is about quality and quantity.

Both are important, but there is a balance.

Why quantity of content matters

For the Google algorithms to notice you and move you up the page, you need to be regularly posting new content on your website.

New content is tantalising for the SEO algorithms. New and diverse content is more likely to be picked up and pushed to the top.

What’s more, new content will enable you to tailor it to current events. Posting about unfolding events will prime you to pick up traffic as people turn to Google for the news.

For example, if a new piece of regulation is announced by the EU that will affect your clientele, write an article explaining what is happening and how to anticipate problems, so when people Google it, they find your website. If you keep doing this every time there is relevant news, Google will learn to promote you.

It’s not just new content that is important. A wealth of ‘evergreen’ content, such as ‘how to’ articles and other explorers that people regularly search over time, will move you up the ranking. This takes time to build, so you should be regularly posting evergreen content.

Why quality matters – trust

Google measures more than just traffic volume. It also learns what is a trustworthy source and what is not.

If someone clicks on your link, only to find that it doesn’t answer their content and leave your website quickly, Google will punish you.

In August 2023, they said they would go after bad content more vigorously.

If the algorithm decides you have unhelpful content, you will move way down the ranking. Even if you have some helpful content, it won’t matter. The decision that you are unhelpful applies to your whole site.

It takes a long time for the algorithm to trust you and no time at all for it to lose confidence. Then it takes a long time to claw back up to the top.

So avoid clickbait headlines, do not post about news or trends to generate traffic if it isn’t relevant to your area of expertise.

Quality is important.

In short, write good content regularly. Do not undermine your quantity of quality work by producing bad quality content, even as a one-off. Quantity matters, but never at the expense of quality.