Factual accuracy is the most important thing

If you want truly high-quality content, there are lots of things to check for.

But one of them matters more than anything else.

The content hierarchy of needs

As I’ve said elsewhere, I tend to think of content operating on three levels. There’s what you say, how you say it, and quality control. You can read more about this in The problem with the second pair of eyes.

Ideally, our content should work well on all three levels.

But there’s clearly a hierarchy here.

At one end, a stylistic inconsistency might make you look unprofessional.

But at the other end, a factual inaccuracy could be downright disastrous. The consequences of spreading false information in your content could be severe.

Don’t skip fact-checking

I’ve worked with a wide range of content publishers in my career. This means I’ve seen lots of different approaches to publishing content. Some of them skip out vital rungs in the content hierarchy of needs.

For example, I know that there are content agencies out there that don’t have a fact-checking process.

They hire content writers to create articles on a range of topics, all with the goal of optimising clients’ websites for certain search engine keywords.

These articles then go through an editorial process, making sure they follow the client’s web content guidelines.

They might have strict rules for things like passive voice. They might even insist that the article meets a certain readability score.

But shockingly, they take no steps to verify the factual accuracy of the article. The article’s optimised for search engines and easy to read. But does it tell the truth? Nobody knows.

Subject matter experts are vital

Factual accuracy is the bottom rung of the content hierarchy of needs. If it isn’t factually accurate, there’s no point with any of the rest of it. Clear, accessible and readable prose that misleads its readers? No thank you.

This means that the subject matter expert plays a vital role in producing user-friendly web content. The other things matter too. That’s where writers, editors and content designers come in. But factual accuracy matters most.

If you don’t have a process for making sure your content is factually accurate, you should fix this. Otherwise, you might be misleading the people you’re trying to help.