In today’s crowded creator economy, success isn’t just about producing content — it’s about building trust through quality, consistency, and best practices that turn one-time visitors into long-term audiences. In this article, we’ll break down the elements that make up a quality website, industry challenges, and how building a quality website helps creators & brands succeed.
Creators aren’t websites — they’re people with names, faces, voices, values, and stories. A strong personal brand enhances connection, builds community, and keeps audiences coming back. Visitors return not only for the content itself, but for who is sharing it and the journey they’re part of.
Take influencer Nisha Vora, creator of rainbowplantlife.com. She has a YouTube channel with 1.4 million subscribers, followings across Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, and a recipe blog with a storefront. Nisha’s brand identity is consistent across platforms: she uses vibrant colors and spices to showcase vegan cooking, and her aesthetic reflects that — from photography to video backdrops. Her personal story as a lawyer-turned-food-blogger also resonates deeply with her audience, many of whom aspire to make bold career changes. She engages with followers on topics like health and environmental issues, while personally responding to comments. This mix of visual consistency, personal storytelling, and engagement is what makes her brand strong.
Despite examples like this, establishing trust is one of the biggest challenges for creators today. And without trust, growth suffers: 70% of consumers share content only from brands they trust, and trust is a major factor in whether your content is surfaced across discovery channels. Many creators who are still developing their brand see traffic losses as a result.
Social media platforms have also made visibility harder. Instagram increasingly prioritizes content from friends and family over branded content, and potential TikTok bans in some countries threaten creator reach even further. Research from affiliate platform LTK showed a 70% decline in visibility for the same volume of content compared with 2024, making it increasingly difficult to gain traction without paid amplification.
Improving your branding is one of the most effective ways to cut through these challenges. Some immediate steps include:
Providing accurate, well-structured content that reinforces credibility.
Making menus easy to navigate so users can find what they need quickly.
Adding an About/Author page and clear bylines to show transparency.
Highlighting expertise with credentials and professional bios.
Ensuring visual and voice consistency across your site, social platforms, and video channels.
Consistency is what transforms an online presence into a brand. Pinterest is a unique discovery platform where consistency and quality directly determine visibility. Recipes, in particular, thrive when they are well-organized into focused boards, such as “10-Minute Dinners” or “Vegan Desserts”, that echo the categories on a creator’s website. Just like with branding and menus on-site, clarity and niche focus on Pinterest builds trust: users save and share pins that feel authentic and professional, which signals to the algorithm that your content deserves more reach. By aligning Pinterest boards with the same branding, tone, and categories found on your site, creators create a seamless loop between platform discovery and on-site engagement, and build audience trust.
For more guidelines, see Ezoic’s policies on branding here.
We all know content is the foundation of website quality — it’s why visitors arrive, what keeps them engaged, and what makes them return.
How people consume information has changed dramatically. Audiences are increasingly turning to AI tools for direct answers, often relying on the quick summaries provided in AI overviews. As a result, creators are being pushed to move beyond traditional SEO and embrace generative search optimization, as well as prioritizing other sources like social. Many websites have lost traffic whilst trying to adapt.
Creators also face competition and diminishing returns. The creator economy is overcrowded, including over 50 million creators globally, with fewer influencers achieving viral fame.
Additionally, distribution platforms take large revenue cuts, and keep creators’ content in a closed ecosystem, where they are unable to control the user journey. 2-15% of visitors click away from websites via embedded YouTube videos, and the average visitor watches 2.6 videos after yours; these playlists may include content that contradicts a creator’s message or link to a competitor’s site.
To stand out from competitors you first need to be discoverable. Platforms like Pinterest show how discovery depends on both quality visuals and well-structured content. This gets shares. Social media algorithms favour engagement and show your content to more people, which drives more traffic to your website.
While Pinterest can send huge bursts of traffic, it’s the website experience that determines whether those visitors stick around or bounce. A pin that leads to a low-quality page, for example, one with broken links, confusing menus, or AI-generated fluff, not only disappoints users but also risks being down-ranked by Pinterest itself.
By contrast, a site with well-structured recipes, strong visuals, and consistent branding converts one-time Pinterest visitors into long-term followers — users stay longer, interact more, and are more likely to take actions such as newsletter sign ups, buying from your store, etc. They are also more likely to revisit your site.
In this way, best practices around niche, menus, content quality, and originality don’t just help with Google and advertisers - they also ensure that Pinterest traffic compounds over time rather than evaporating after the first click.
All of this makes you more valuable to advertisers, who value brand-safe, professional websites where their spend is protected, and creators will benefit from higher ad revenue as a result.
And let’s not forget video; the benefits of producing quality video content are significant. Video gets 60-80% more page views than text content alone, and 3x more shares. Research also shows that video platforms are among the top sources for AI search engines.
Producing video also enables you to show instream video ads, which can represent around 15% of a website’s total ad revenue. While platforms like YouTube can take up to 45% of your ad revenue, creators who use Ezoic’s video platform benefit from hosting their own videos, and competitive video ad rates.
Ezoic is committed to helping creators surface quality content which helps them grow, and you can read more about our content policies here.
Creators are grappling with the all important question of whether AI-generated content is a help or a hindrance when it comes to growth.
87% of top recipe websites now include some form of AI-generated content, reflecting the intense pressure in one of the most crowded niches online. Recipe creators often rely on social platforms for discovery, where the demand for constant content is relentless. AI tools seem like a tempting solution — they can generate trend-driven posts at speed, helping creators scale without hiring more freelancers.
But low-quality AI content, without proper editing or fact-checking, does more harm than good. Audiences looking for trusted instructions won’t return to sites with incoherent or unreliable recipes. Recent updates have also shown that mass-repurposed AI content underperforms, with some sites seeing visibility drops of 83%. By contrast, research shows good quality sites are still growing their audiences.
When you use an AI tool to generate content, make sure you review it to ensure the highest quality.
Provide the AI with your author bylines and ask it to include them.
Proofread to ensure the article addresses the title.
Ask the AI to count keyword usage.
Check if the text flows naturally and change phrasing where needed.
Fact-check details and ask the AI to provide sources.
If the content is too general, reprompt to add depth.
When copy-pasting, don’t copy the prompt.
To best ensure originality with recipes, explore fusion dishes, and add unique twists to classics.
Use first-person POV to add personality (e.g., “this was my grandad’s favourite because…”)
Use AI tools with high-quality avatar voices or the option to clone your own voice — examples include Flickify.com and Synthesia.
Iterate on prompts for image and text-to-video tools; some tools (like Flickify.com) include built-in prompt enhancers.
If AI-generated clips don’t work, substitute with metaphorical B-roll from stock libraries, which many video tools already provide.
You can find Ezoic’s full policy on AI generated content here.
Showing a consent management modal when users enter your website is a requirement under GDPR law for EU traffic and signals transparency and trust to users visiting your site.
Failure to comply with this has the potential to result in fines of up to €20 million, or 4% of global annual revenue (whichever is higher).
It also impacts ad serving, since platforms like Google AdSense and Ad Manager rely on valid CMP signals; errors may result in restricted or non-personalized ads, reduced revenue, or even account suspension for non-compliance with Google’s EU User Consent Policy.
Google and other ad tech partners also require publishers to comply with CCPA if they serve California traffic. If you don’t, Google may:
Restrict your ads to non-personalized ads.
Limit data sharing with advertisers.
Potentially suspend monetization for non-compliance.
Ezoic's Consent Management App (CMP) is a free, Google-compliant tool you can use to configure and manage cookie permissions to ensure compliance with GDPR and CCPA regulations. You can find more info on our CMP here.
You will need to accurately input your Geo into the CMP. This is defined as ‘The country your site is based in, as it pertains to privacy regulations’. This is important because it determines the correct consent banner and legal text—US sites typically require an opt-out banner, while EU sites must display an opt-in banner. Getting this wrong can lead to illegal data collection and regulatory penalties.
You can find Ezoic’s policy on privacy and consent management here.
Broken links might seem like a small scratch in the otherwise shiny website paintwork. But it’s a crack which exposes you to the elements. Once you have rust, you’re on track for the breaker’s yard.
Let’s take an example, imagine you have a web user who is fed up with recipes for dinners that take ages to make. They search for “10 minute dinner recipes” and your article on this topic pops up. They click, and it 404s. This looks unprofessional and erodes credibility — users are there for practical instructions, so if links to related recipes, Pinterest boards, or social channels don’t work, they quickly lose trust. Over time this will hurt your traffic.
Imagine that visitor was feeling particularly hangry when they landed on your 404 page and was also an influencer who then posts all over social media about the dearth of time-poor cooking recipes, and links your website. That’s a lot of damage that could have been avoided with a small amount of diligence from you.
You can find Ezoic’s policy on broken links here.
It’s best practice to include contact information or a contact form on your website. Having visible contact information shows transparency and reliability — especially for content that impacts health, safety, or finances (YMYL content, like recipes and nutrition).
If you own a business, visitors expect to be able to contact you for queries about sales, billing, shipments, partnerships, and complaints.
Additionally, in the EU it’s required for websites to list contact information, which means in order for Ezoic to serve ads on these websites they need to be in compliance.
Avoid using fake contact information. This is viewed as deceit by Google and can result in an MCM account ban.
You can find Ezoic’s policy on contact information here.