Everybody loves to use throw around the buzz word “quality content.” And a simple Google Search query for “quality content” will lead you to even more discussion debating what “quality content” actually is. But forget theory… let’s get down to some nitty gritty numbers shall we?

Below is a ranking/scoring system I created for measuring Quality Content with intelligence. The basis or foundation of this scoring system relies on 3 things. 1) that this content is actually blog content rather than traditional static web content, 2) the goal for this content is to be “remarkable” and 3) the other goal is for this content to be Evergreen Content.

So… let’s get started.

1. How Was the Content Received Socially?

First I like to see how an article performed socially. Was it engaging? Did it catch people’s immediate interest? These answers and more can be answered simply by how well the article performs on a social level.

• # of Retweets = 1 point each
• # of Facebook Likes = 1 point each
• # of other social bookmarks = .5 points each (I recommend using a social bookmarking tool like addthis to help you track this)
• # of comments = 1 point each

All points here are bonus to the overall score out of 100.

2. Did the Content Achieve any Business Goals?

Next is to evaluate the content on a business level. Did it meet any business goals? In other words did it generate leads? Sales? Downloads? etc. As you can imagine these metrics hold much more weight when it comes to points. Blog articles are usually meant to support the overall site, so any direct business goals met through your articles are definitely an added bonus!

• # of purchases/leads = 10 points
• # of subscriptions (rss, email, facebook page likes etc.) or downloads = 2 points

All points here are bonus to the overall score out of 100

3. Did the Content Meet Any Technical Requirements? (at least…)

Now here is where you have to begin really evaluating with those eye balls of yours. The on-page SEO in you loves this part of the content scoring. And since technical details play such an important role in web content, this is a part you want to evaluate carefully.

• 500 words in length = y/n
• 1 image = y/n
• 1 call to action = y/n
• 2 outbound links = y/n
• 1 internal link = y/n
• clean url = y/n (no weird characters in the url)

Each “yes” is worth 5 points and each “no” is worth 0 points. Total possible points here = 30

4. How’s the Readability and Usability of the Content?

And now for the final part of your content scoring evaluation. This part is much less technical and more subjective in nature. In other words this is the part that is left more up to your opinion and expertise. But that’s okay! Because if machines could read whether or not content was quality, than machines could create quality content leaving you and your writers without a job or income.

Which is why you must be a harsh critic and evaluate the following with a high standard. This part makes up the majority of the quality content score.

• Image Relevancy – is the image relevant to the article
• Image Quality – what’s the actual quality of the image
• Title Quality – does the title adequately describe what the article is about?
• Title Creativity - is it just another title? Or does it have some punch to it?
• Title Length – does the article have a ridiculously long title?
• H Tag Usage – is the article broken up with h tags to help the search engines understand what the article is about?
• H Tag Quality – are the h tags engaging? Descriptive? Really think about this one.
• Bold Over-usage – you know an over-bolded article when you see one. It’s hard to miss.
• Link Over-usage – are there too many links on the page? More than 10 links and I start to get worried.
• Link Quality – what’s the quality of the links the article links out to. Are any of these links broken?
• Logical Flow – does the article follow an order from the beginning all the way through the end?
• Scanability – as usability expert Jakob Nielsen puts it… users like to scan web pages. Is your article scannable?
• Context of Content - what is the context or relevancy of the article to the overall messaging of the blog/site?
• Overall Formatting – are there any formatting errors? Think spacing around images, funky characters from copy & paste etc.

Each is marked either as “great” which is 5 points, “good” which is 3 points, or “poor” which can be either 0 or 1 points. Total possible points here = 70

What You Get When You’re Done

Using an Excel/OpenOffice spreadsheet simply tally up your score out of 100. The higher the score the better the content was. Don’t settle for anything less than 90 on a per article basis! Set the bar high for yourself and great results will follow.

Take all of these scores and analyze them on a month basis, running an average for all scores in an entire month. Make it a personal goal to improve that score month after month.