Rich Web Site Content for Dummies
When you’re developing content on your site, it’s important to create a careful mix of SEO content vs customer content. They should mess well together. Content written for search engine placement is often ugly with little regard for the end user. Honestly it shouldn’t even exist. Content must be carefully put together so that it gives people a reason to stay, to spend their time and money with you, and it should make the customer feel attracted to the business. I don’t necessarily mean to the point where they stalk you and hang their underwear on your car antennae. It’s a matter of creating content that speaks to your visitors. Here are some tips toward getting there:
- Content is tailored to the audience – Upon reviewing your site copy, you shouldn’t find a lot of self-directed verbiage (like us, our, we or I). It should contain a fair amount of customer friendly language (you and your). If you write with self-focus then you’re obviously not writing with your customer and audience in mind. Be mindful of your audience. Customers have an ongoing dialogue in their mind. Your website content should speak to them and join that conversation seamlessly.
- Focus on informative content – Your content can say the same thing that everyone else is saying. That will guarantee you a spot at the back of the line when it comes to search engine listings. If you open an ecommerce store, you wouldn’t just use the same old product descriptions on your site because you would never be able to compete with existing sites that holding gladiatorial positions on the first page of Google. They’d stump a mudhole in your face just for looking at them cross-eyed. This is why it’s important to generate deeply informative content that focuses on the target keywords for your market. Detailed product info, content rich pages utilizing content that is informative in value and careful organization of content will win you sales, links and position within the search engines.
- Content for search engines = horse vomit – Every business online wants to rank among the search engines. It’s a major goal. If you’re major goal is to fail at your attempt then writing only for search engine placement is a surefire way to sink. You need to speak for and to the people who visit your site, not the spiders. If you want to do this properly, write your content with a standard of at least 500 words, and write with humans in mind. Once you’re finished, review the content to clean it up and spend that time inserting your necessary keywords. There’s no harm in returning to a page after a few weeks in order to make it more keyword-dense. By doing this, you met your human-interface requirement and didn’t offend people with garbage. Spiders will reindex you later and adjust your listing accordingly.
- Pull an emotional response – You’re inhuman if you don’t get emotional over a good story or a deeply dramatic movie. People love to find emotional attachment in this world, and it doesn’t really matter what it is. If you can speak directly to the emotions of others and use those emotions to drive their attention then you’re on the winning team for the gold. Are you passionate about your site and the services within? Does your website show this to the audience? If your site and the content within directly reflects how emotional and passionate you are – that you are certain what you have to offer will solve their problem. Slap them with a strong call-to-action at the end and you can leave no doubt in the mind of your audience what they should do.
- Social Media Blitz – If you haven’t been pushing your alerts and content posts out through places like facebook and twitter then you are officially a minority. Not the kind of minority that gets benefits either. You’re the smelly minority that no one wants to play with. These channels for content publication are going to explode in popularity over the course of 2010. These social media access points provide another point of content with a rabid, loyal customer base. When people see something they like, they can’t help but share it. It’s gotten so easy to pass messages along. There are no better tools for cross-promotion. Period.
- Unique content across the board – Keep in mind that every page within your site is potentially an entry and an exit point. Each page then should be varied and engaging to your reader. It should contain both clear and subtle calls to action to engage them and keep them “turning pages” that all lead toward the result – converting the visitor into a customer. Using different forms of content across the board is a great way to ensure repeat visits and effective word-of-mouth marketing.
As Bill Gates once announced – Content is King. He was correct, it is. It always will be. If you cut corners on your content then you will pay for it on your bottom line. It is the single most important factor as a part of your direct marketing to customers that are currently engaging your site and services.
Related posts:
- Article Marketing – Powerful Content That Delivers
