In today's highly technological society, having a website is crucial to business. Consumers will visit your Web page to find out about your company, browse your offerings and research your products. If you don't have a site to detail your company and its services, you may be missing out on a large portion of your potential audience.
However, solely creating a website isn't going to drive traffic to your page. You'll need to create content that search engines will love and people will want to read or view. By following a few steps, you'll see a return on your content.
1. Define your audience
You can't create thorough and successful content if you aren't sure who you're writing for. Before you begin brainstorming ideas and producing articles, you'll need to determine your target audience, Web Marketing Today explained. Are you marketing to everyday people, business employees or C-level executives? What are you selling or promoting? What are your goals? The answers to these questions can go a long way toward helping you develop content for your page. The end reader or viewer will determine the tone, format, word choice and style of the information you're providing.
If you want to be a hit with your fans, you need to create content that boosts their interest.2. Determine content ideas
Whether you've been in business for a while or are just starting out, there's a chance that you've written some type of promotional content. Before you start writing for your website, you should evaluate the articles that you've produced in other formats, Web Marketing today recommended. If you already have a Web page, that's even better. You should reread all the content that you've produced and look for consistent language and tone, audience, factual and up-to-date information and relevance.
If you have an existing website, you should also look at the analytics to determine what is working and what isn't. This provides you with insight into what parts of your content marketing strategy are successful. By examining the data, you can decide what type of articles and topics to do less of and which should be done more.
"If you have nothing original to say, don't say it."
However, when coming up with content ideas, you need to decide on original and thought-provoking topics, according to KISSmetrics. The writers suggested two rules for writing website content: 1. You get what you paid for; and 2. If you have nothing original to say, don't say it. If you simply reformat the ideas of other articles on the Web, you aren't going to be providing any new information to your readers. Producing content at fast paces at lower prices also won't offer you any benefits. While you want to post regularly, you need to post new content, not articles that you're just reiterating. KISSmetrics two rules will aid you in creating valuable articles that will be worth fitting content writers into your financial plan.
3. Decide on the type of content
There are countless ways to provide information to your customers, including photo galleries, videos, descriptions or articles. Each format is going to appeal to different groups of people and may cover a variety of topics. However, you should focus on providing value and not just promoting your company and its products, Web Marketing Today explained. Instead, you should tell how consumers use and view your merchandise and services. This will be much more beneficial than simply boasting of your business online.
There are many formats that you can use to illustrate these success stories. However, you should focus on evergreen content instead of news-based articles. Stories about current events, fashion, technology and statistics lose their relevance quickly, according to Digital Marketing Pro. Instead, you want to write content that can provide helpful information that doesn't have an expiration date. Evergreen content can come in a variety of formats that will attract different groups of consumers.
- How-to's – Instructional content such as how-to videos and articles are both informational and helpful, the source explained. They not only provide solutions to answerable problems, but they also lend a hand in showing off your expertise. You'll be able to help your customers on topics related to your business while promoting your products and services. How-to content is generally always relevant as once a method has been established, that is usually how the task is handled. Unless quicker and efficient ways are discovered, your instructional article will drive traffic for years.
- FAQs – A Frequently Asked Questions section is similar to how-to articles as in it provides valuable and crucial information. However, they offer brief and easy-to-understand responses that make them ideal for business websites, according to PR Newswire's Small Business PR ToolKit contributor Phillip Thune. FAQs offer snippets of information while freeing up customer service representatives to handle situations that are more pressing.
- Interviews – According to Thune, interviews are one of the most versatile forms of content. They can appear as videos or articles, be repurposed into other content and used in marketing material. Interviews also add an extra layer of truth and reliability to your company, services and products, as they are generally done with experts in the industry.
4. Start writing
After you've determined topics and formatting, it's now time to begin actually producing content. Maintain consistent tone and language so that you stand by your brand. You should also avoid industry jargon, as this may eliminate any significance it holds, Inside Business – The Hampton Roads Business Journal claimed. Overused terms and phrases lose their meaning overtime so you want to avoid any words that could fall into these categories. You may also alienate members of your audience by using industry-based language. If people aren't sure what words, phrases and concepts mean, they are going to turn to another source.
Most importantly, try to keep your articles short and to the point, KISSmetrics suggested. Too many descriptive words and flowery language can turn people away. Provide them with the information they're looking for right from the start. It also doesn't hurt to use multiple formats within one article. Visuals such as slide shows, inline images, videos and pull quotes can break up large blocks of text and provide another way to explain the information.
You can create a website at no cost to you, but your business banking account will see the benefits as valuable content drives traffic and sales.