Content For Your Website

Everyone is always buzzing about the topic of content for a website.  There is good reason to talk about this topic.   Google has flat out said that they will crawl your website for content to determine your authority on the topic that your customers are looking to understand or purchase.

The more you educate your customers, the better chance you stand to get Google’s attention.  We are going to talk about a few must do’s and a few never do’s when it comes to writing and posting content on your website.

Creating content for your website is a critical factor in getting your business found on the first page of Google but is just one factor.  Understanding how Google works and what Google considers spam on your site are important facts that you should understand before you start to optimize your web pages.

Why is content so important

Content is important for several reasons.  First, your customers are much more educated these days. They tend to research a product or service before making a purchase. If you provide the visitors to your site with good information about your industry, product or service, you will start to earn not only the customers trust but you will gain the attention of the search engines as well.  Remember that Google is looking to deliver up the best possible websites for the users search, the more pages of content you have to offer a potential buyer the more chances you have to show up on the first page of Google.

The content on your website is what your customers will use to determine if they will be spending their money with you.   That is HUGE! Take the time to create great content as well as optimizing that content for your chosen key words. 

How to start with your content writing

First, before you ever write the first word, do your research. Writing content that your customers want to read and are looking to read is your goal.  If you simply start writing random articles that are not of interest to your customer personas then how do you expect to show up for the search query that no one looks for?

How do you find the keywords that your customers are searching?

Google it! There are several companies that will give you keyword tools but most will charge you each month for that service.  Google keyword tool is FREE.  Step into the minds of your customers and use keywords that your buyer personas are typing into the search.  Keyword Research is the first step in content writing.

What type of content should you write about?

If you experience a bit of writers block then a good place to start is with your existing customers. What are their biggest questions or concerns? Hopefully you have a great understanding of your idea customer persona (where are my customers) and you can write your content around their needs and desires, (using key worded titles for your article).

Should you pay to have content written?

If you do a quick search for content writing services online you will find about 461 million results.  So there seems to be a need or at least enough folks that are looking for this type of service. Be careful when you choose to hire out your websites content, or if you decide to use an article spinner software program. What you will find is the firms that offer you a lot of content for a low fee tend to take content that has already been written. They will either use article spinners or simply deliver the original content to you as an “original” piece. 

The main reasons this is NOT a good plan for you is; Google gives no credit to duplicate content and spinners tend to lose all quality after just a few spins. What a spinner does is take an article and replace words with other words that could mean the same. The problem is that, although words can be changed and still have a sentence make since, many times there is a huge different in the whole picture when you replace “does” with “might” or “and” with “but”.  I can spot a spun article very quickly.  If your content is not well written and is just there to use the keyword you are targeting then your visitors will be just as unimpressed with your information as the search engines and you will not gain their trust or come across as any kind of an authority.

What is good content – Good webpage content is interesting content that is related to your business, industry, products or services.  Content that makes people want to read and share it with others.  When you write good content you gain so much more ROI.  The whole social media craze is people that want to share information with other people that either means a lot to them or that they think others don’t know or might want to know.  Think of your content as potential marketing gossip, if you can get people to tell others about your product then you have just achieved what advertisers have been going after forever.

Good content starts with a good title, but a great title that gets people to visit your site, without great content will cost you in the long run.  Let’s say your Article title is “Boy Uses Frog to save brothers life”.  Great title! I’d click to see how and what happened.  But if I clicked on that and was taken to a one line statement that didn’t give any details about this story but instead told me to buy something or quickly asked me to click on yet another link I would simply click the back button and leave your site.  Don’t bait and switch.  You may get traffic but you will not get customers and the search engines will see that your site has a very high bounce rate.  A high bounce rate tells a search engine that people are not finding what they are looking for on your site so they will not be offering your site up for review by people searching for your type of product or service.

Adding content to your website

Write content for your customers first. Think of your website as a brick and mortar store.  When a person walks in the store they are not necessarily ready to buy your product.  Maybe they are just looking to do a little research right now.  You want to have content to help them understand your product, what others use your product for, the benefits of your products etc. but you don’t want to meet them at the door, point to your product and ask them if they want to pay check or credit card.  For these visitors to your site you want to give them just what they’re looking for; information.

The next customer that walks in may have already been to your store and several others and knows much more about the product and is now looking to compare your products with the others they’ve seen or compare the choices that you may offer.  This visitor should be given the type of content that provides the answers that they are seeking but still not greet them at the door with a credit card swiper in hand.

The last customer walks into your store and they had already bought your product.  You want to have content available to give them information on how to really get the most out of the product, how others have used your product for unique and different uses and you want this visitor to know you appreciate their business.

I am not saying that your content should not have a call to action in the body of the page.  You are, after all, in business to sell your products and services.  I am saying that you should treat your online business page the same way you would if these visitors were walking into your store. If you pressure a customer for a sale the minute they walk into your store then you end up losing that customer.

Greet them, answer their questions, educate them, then let them know how you can take care of them should they decide to buy your product. It’s just common sense.

Now that you have a good idea about what your idea customers are typing in the search bar and you have some great titles that are long tail keywords searches that you could possibly rank high for, you want to write your content.

Just start writing, get it all out, and say everything you can remember and think of that could be helpful and educational.  Once your article is written you can go back and do a few things. 

You can now start to optimize your content by naturally placing a few keywords into the body of your content, add videos or images that will help support the article and you will want to lead your readers to any other articles that you may have written that are a natural transition from this current article.   I talk about the optimization of images, videos. Title tags and URL’s in “Good Web Page Content”.  See how that worked?  In this case there was too much information to cover in this one article so I broke it up and now have several new pages of content on my site.  Each page gets indexed by the search engines and I gain more authority in the engines eyes for providing my visitors with great content. 

Why does Dot Web Solutions write articles like this one for our clients?  We are a full web solutions company.  Our clients are all business owners that need use of every tool in order to dominate their fields.  The success of our clients is our priority.  We’d love to include you in are list of clients.  Feel free to call 719 302 5029 and let us know how we can help your business goals become reality.