What Does High-Quality Content Actually Mean? 

Interior design students and experienced professionals alike often wonder whether they should be sharing their content on the internet. How much is okay to share without giving away some of the trade secrets that clients pay top dollar for? The good news is that there is no such thing as sharing too much information on the internet today.  

First, know this: everything your clients could possibly want to know about the industry is already available for them if they want to take the time to look for it. Most people don’t want to spend their precious few free hours combing through all of the possible resources on the limitless web. They don’t know how to decide which tips and tricks are pertinent or apply them to an actual project.  

Clients hire designers because they lack the expertise and the desire to design their own projects. By giving away quality content to your prospective clients, you establish yourself as an expert in the field and set yourself up as worthy of their time and money.  

Don’t be reluctant to share high-quality content with your audience. It will show up as lackluster content that doesn’t benefit you, your business, or your clients. Instead, you should focus on some of these key tips to improve your content. 

What Is High-Quality Content? 

Interior designers often wonder the answer to this (modern) age-old question: what is high-quality content? Fortunately, the answer is relatively simple. It is any piece that addresses doubts, concerns, or questions that your client might have related to their project. 

High-quality content should thoroughly answer their main question as well as any other questions that may arise in the process of reading the article.  

Content marketing is essential to build a thriving interior design business, but it must be quality content. If you don’t have the time or energy to dedicate to writing your content, it may be time to consider doing some of the following: 

• Hiring professional writing assistance
• Taking a class on how to become a better writer
• Delegating some of your responsibilities to others to make more time for writing
• Learn tips and tricks to speed up your writing

Prioritize creating high-quality content for your clients to look through even before hiring you as the designer for their project. This content sets the stage for positive interactions from clients who respect you as the authority in design from the very beginning.  

Even if they never mention it, the odds are that new clients already perused your website and liked what they saw when it came to your high-quality content. This is why it is essential to ensure that every interaction with your page is positive and even better, valuable. 

How to Create Quality Content

Don’t fall victim to the same mistakes that most interior designers make when blogging. There are a few key ways that you can create quality content that your readers will come back to time and again. It all starts with conducting the best research you can in a given area, even if you feel that you are already an expert. 

Provide Original Information, Reporting, or Research

When you are starting a new blog or article, you need to keep your sources in mind. If you are going to reference statistics or studies, make the most of original research or information. 

Never trust a shady source or rely on it to make a point. Your readers are astute and will pick up on anything that doesn’t sound quite right, and they may lose trust in you as a source and expert in the end.

Explore Topics Comprehensively

If you want to establish yourself as an expert in the field of interior design, then you need to ensure that you are covering every aspect of the topic you choose. Provide answers to questions that your audience may be asking, as long as they are relevant to the topic. 

The goal is to create quality content that thoroughly addresses all concerns your audience may have. 

Offer Original Insight

Don’t just paraphrase someone else’s opinion or research! Your audience wants to know what your unique take is on the subject. 

They are looking to see whether they can rely on you to guide them through their next project. If your article has no original insight or ideas in it, your readers will be able to spot it. 

Use Clear Sourcing and Expert Authorship

Do you reference research or statistics in your latest blog? Make sure to provide a clear link to the source of your information, only linking to high-authority websites. This demonstrates that your content can be trusted. 

Check for Accurate Spelling and Grammar

Even if writing isn’t one of your strongest skills, you can still do what you can to ensure that your article has accurate spelling and grammar. Word processing software can help you spot some of these errors. You can also use services like Grammarly. 

Hallmarks of Low-Quality Content

Your readers are looking for the hallmarks of high-quality content, but they are also keeping an eye out for content that leaves them wanting more. Low-quality content can be detrimental to your brand, so make sure to avoid some of these common pitfalls: 

Auto-Generated Content

There are plenty of AI content writers out there that can formulate an article with minimal effort from the designer. Plug in a few keywords, and they can populate an entire article. But they may not be accurate! 

It is always best to stick to content you create yourself so you can ensure it contains high-quality information and sources. 

Irrelevant Use of Keywords

Keywords are an important indicator if you want your content to rank on Google. There’s no point in learning how to create quality content if nobody ever gets to see it. 

However, there can be a fine line between naturally integrating keywords into your article and keyword stuffing. The latter will be flagged and penalized in the search engine result pages. 

Don’t try to force a keyword into your article just on the off chance that you might get it to rank. Focus instead on natural integration that makes sense in the context of your whole article. 

Unoriginal or Plagiarized Content

Interior designers who want to become known as leaders in their industry should avoid plagiarism at all costs. Never take the words of another designer or industry expert and try to pass them off as your own. 

Even paraphrasing the content can come across as insincere and inauthentic. Always write your own content and do your own research. 

Excessive Redirects, Backlinks, or Hidden Text

You want your clients to engage with your blog and your website as much as possible. While some internal linking (links to other pages on your site) is a good idea, you will want to avoid the addition of too many external links. Redirecting clients away from your page is never good. 

You should always cite your sources if referencing research, but try to keep redirects and backlinks to the bare minimum. 

How to Improve Content

If you want to produce high-quality content, you need to know how to improve the content that may already exist on your blog. Fortunately, optimizing your content doesn’t have to be very hard. You can optimize the content on your website with just a few simple tips and tricks to make content more scannable and easily accessible to readers. 

A few tips include: 

• Adding subheadings (H2 and H3 titles)
• Including subtopics related to the main topic
• Asking questions to promote more engagement 

Of course, there is more to creating quality content than simply structuring your articles more effectively. Also, you need to aim to increase the content length, which should be easy when you start to branch out into related topics. 

Long-form articles tend to rank better on search engines and give your client plenty of meaty information to dig into. You can also add interactive elements to your text to make it more appealing to engage with. 

Make sure to utilize your Google Search Console or other analytics tools to monitor your core web vitals as well. If they flag an issue that might present a problem for your results pages or the user experience on your page, you need to troubleshoot these issues right away. Even seemingly minor issues like a long load time can affect user experience and rankings.

You also need to make sure that you provide links to other content found on your website. Internal linking was mentioned earlier as a tip for creating high-quality content, but it bears repeating. By directing readers to other pages on your site, they are engaging with you longer and are one step closer to hiring you as their designer.

Sharing Your Secret Sauce for Success

Whether you are just starting your business or have been building up a steady client list for years, there is always something more to learn about creating quality content for your clients and audience. 

There is no such thing as sharing too much information if you want your clients to trust you and your expertise. Don’t worry about giving away the secret sauce that allows your business to thrive!  

Behind the Design aims to build a stronger interior design community by providing more support and education beyond the college years. If this blog sparked your interest in creating high-quality content, you might want to discover a few other key ways to drive more traffic to your website. 

Check out our supremely helpful guide to 25 Simple Ways for You to Drive More Website Traffic!