There are literally hundreds of millions of blogs out there on the internet. The majority of them are just filling up space and not adding anything of value to the web experience. More bluntly put, most blogs are garbage.

Today, it’s more important than ever for you to be creating high quality content. The saying might be old and annoying by now, but content is king. That’s truer than ever before.

Google is cracking down on content quality and doing everything in its power to make sure that only the best content rises to the top of the search engines. But that’s not the only reason you need to make sure you’re producing great content. Your customers are paying attention too. They want to do business with companies that demonstrate thought leadership and trustworthiness. Furthermore, your competitors are starting to discover the power of content marketing, so you have to make sure you’re outdoing them as well.

Of course, that brings us back to your blog. Your blog is probably one of your biggest channels for publishing your content. That’s why it’s important that you take the time to make sure you’re doing everything you can to make this content as good as it can be.

With that goal in mind, here are a few simple tips you can follow to start improving the quality of your blog content:

•  Write something people can’t find anywhere else—Why do most blogs fail? Because they put out the same old, same old content that can be found in thousands of other places. No matter what niche you’re in, you can be sure that about 90% of the blogs are rehashing the same topics and saying the same things over and over again. Want to publish better content? Try writing something that no one else has written. Give your readers an experience they can’t get on any other blog.

• Proofread your work—Yes, blogs are typically more casual than traditional forms of media, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be sloppy or careless. Take the time to proofread your posts. If your posts are littered with typos and grammatical mistakes, it diminishes your credibility. Readers won’t take you that seriously, and it could even cause the search engines to determine that your site is of lower quality.

• Do more research than other bloggers—Too often, bloggers fall into the trap of shouting their opinions without backing them up with facts. Hold yourself to a higher standard. Take the time to do the research. Dig up data that verifies your points. When your posts have great statistics and information in them, people will see that you know what you’re talking about. They’ll trust you. You’ll become an authority in your industry.

• Add strong visual elements to your posts—Make your content more interesting by adding visuals to it. A good visual can help you really illustrate your point. This is especially important since approximately 65% of the populations consists of visual learners.

Take an honest look at your blog content. Could it be better?