The most successful websites on the internet generally have a lot of quality content. However, for a website with limited resources, it can be difficult to understand if you should primarily be focused on content quality or content quantity.
You can watch the video below for my take on the matter, or watch it directly on YouTube. As a content creator, I give you my primary focus when I’m trying to grow my business with new content.
Content Quality vs. Content Quantity
Content Marketing – Quality or Quantity?
I will make the case for both quality and for quantity throughout this article. One thing to remember is that your focus will depend on your business, your resources, and your goals. If you are covering technology news, you probably want to focus on creating a lot of news-related content. If you are covering new tech products, you probably want to focus more on research and creating in-depth content.
The Case for Quality Content
What is Quality Content? Content that is well-researched and includes expertise on the subject. In addition, it needs to be comprehensive whether it is a blog article, video, visual elements, audio, or some combination of all four mediums.
Expertise
When you consistently produce quality content on your website, on your YouTube channel, and for your business, it builds up your expertise. People will not only find your content when others share it, but they will actively seek it out as well.
Google Rankings
The best way to gain Google Rankings for competitive keywords is to create great content. If you can cover a topic from top to bottom, Google will improve your search engine rankings over time.
Authority
If you think about the top marketers you follow, your favorite cooks, or your favorite journalists, it’s because you expect them to produce quality content, food, and articles. You can build authority by focusing on quality.
The Case for Quantity Content
What is Quantity Content? Content that can be created quicker and doesn’t include comprehensive information on the topic. News articles, short videos, and quick podcasts can be considered quantity content.
More Content
News websites would go out of business if they didn’t produce a lot of news stories every single day. For certain industries and topics, more content isn’t always the best option.
Grow Your Following
For the most part, when you look at people or brands on social media with a large number of followers, they produce a lot of content. It doesn’t mean they don’t focus on quality as well, but quantity is a huge factor in their following.
In addition, if you produce a lot of content, it gives you the opportunity to share more content with people on social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. In addition, it can help to keep people on your email list engaged with your business.
Focused Content
When I say focused content, I mean that you can answer someone’s question, you can cover a small topic, or you can write a news article about one subject. Rather than writing a complete guide that covers an extensive topic from top to bottom, you can write a shorter article that covers a smaller topic within that larger extensive topic.
Focus on Quality and Quantity
In an ideal world, you have the resources to focus on creating as much quality content as possible. If you can write and publish several high-quality blog articles per day, you will be able to attract more people to your business.
However, I like to focus my attention 80% on quality and 20% on quantity when it comes to creating new content.
The 80% Rule
I believe you should focus 80% on quality or 80% on quantity. That will allow you to put in the time necessary to learn the topic you are writing about, and use your expertise properly if you focus on quality. In addition, if you want to focus on quantity, you can publish more content every single day, week, month, and year.
It’s hard to put a 50-50 focus on both, so either try to be comprehensive with extensive topics or try to publish as much as possible.
Total Word Count and Google Rankings
I would say a quality piece of content is 1,000 words or longer at a very minimum. Now, there are certain cases where less is more. However, when you are covering a detailed topic, you need to explain it thoroughly, which can take a lot of words, images, and videos.
Backlinko did a study analyzing search engine rankings and why some websites or pieces of content rank higher. The graph below shows that it is pretty clear that longer content will rank higher in search engines.
Published Blog Posts and Inbound Traffic
One of the best cases for quantity comes from Hubspot. When looking at how often companies should add new blog posts, their takeaway was clear that publishing more is going to improve inbound traffic.
Just by looking at the graph above and the graph below, it’s clear that you need to choose a content creation strategy that includes quantity and quality. Ultimately, it comes down to using your resources as efficiently as possible to drive more inbound traffic.
How Often Do News Websites Publish Content
We can’t all compete with websites like Washington Post and New York Times when it comes to publishing content. They simply have more employees than most businesses can afford and more financial resources.
If you are wondering how often news companies publish stories, they generally publish hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of content every single day. I would say this is the best example of quantity in action, but they still have investigative reporters that will publish high-quality content as well.
Bottom Line: Focus On Your Goals and Resources
If you own a business with employees that are producing content, find ways to produce as much quality content as possible. You can still publish shorter stories that are not going to take all day, all week, or all month to create. Although, I believe the best way to grow your traffic over the course of time is to focus on quality content.
In my opinion, if you are struggling between producing quality content vs. quantity content, I would try to create as much informative content as possible and let your quantity build over time.
