How Content Is The Most Powerful Asset For Websites: A Quick Tale
Creating and showcasing relevant and valuable content that resonates with your customers is the essence of a great website that gets you conversions and profits
Joe Pulizzi, amazingly captured the importance of content in the title of his book “Get Content, Get Customers”. Original and creatively curated content on your website not only positions your brand as a credible expert but also attracts and retains customers by striking the right chord.
Not giving enough thought on what type of content features on your website can drive your customers away to explore other online options. Would you risk your website to face this scenario?
If the answer to the above query is an assuring “NO” then it makes lot of sense for you to read this article further. Let’s do this in the good old FAQ format.
1) What constitutes as content?
Content is categorized into two essential categories:
- Text – Written content on the page either available freely in text blocks or embedded within images. It is usually written keeping global readers into perspective with good internal links and optimized for SEO
- Multimedia – Anything that is not text and includes images, animation, sound files, video, diagrams, hero shots and more. Again the multimedia featuring on websites should be professionally edited and optimized. It should be done in moderation, taking into account compatibility with various browsers
For both the types, rule of thumb is the same: Content should interest the audience with some new information or solve their problem quick enough for them to keep coming back.
2) How can good website content help my business?
One of the biggest advantages of having relevant and updated content on your website is that it makes you more visible to the customers. Search engines rate content over any other factor while ranking your website over several others. Some of the most plausible benefits when content is the “Star” of your website include:
- Your ranking on search results soars up making you easily discoverable by customers. High quality content creation is very effective for SEO.
- It helps to garner close relationships and clear lines of communication with customers thereby paving trust and credibility of the brand
- It becomes easy to promote your brand on social media when you have great content backing your products/services. When more people see and talk about the content, the user traffic rockets automatically
- Positions your brand as an expert/authority in your domain/niche as your company name crops up every time your prospective customers look up for related resources/ info
- Content drives purchases. Shared content on varied social sites and blogs as well as user generated content like ratings, recommendations, online reviews, comparison sites, all act as influencers for customers’ buying decision
3) What is the most important content on a website?
While each page on your website is critical and include some sort of call-to-action (CTA), there are some that are most crucial to ensure “Application Value” of your website. These pages include:
- Home Page – This section does the major job of attracting the customers and can be a gateway for them to explore your site further. So make sure the headlines are eye-catchers, with most critical info right there in center and clear flow with next steps
- About Us Page – This page can create the maximum customer engagement if crafted with end user in mind. Include at least one CTA, as the target group is not just looking for info.
- Blog – Create lasting impact on your customers by giving them reasons to visit your page again and again by giving them recent and popular insights. Blogs are great to strengthen your social presence through the sharing of blog posts and widening the follower community
Figure this – 57% of marketers have acquired new customers via their blogs (www.brafton.com)
- Contact Us Page – A recent B2B Web Usability report, 2015 revealed that “No Contact Info/Phone number” was the reason 44% of customers said they would leave a vendor website. Give all the engaging info like Phone number, Chat, map, mailing address, email address and so on to instantly gratify their need.
4) Is content more important than design?
It is a no-brainer that people hate dull looking, cluttered and difficult to navigate websites. Design impacts your business by connecting with buyer persona with look, feel, images and color scheme that presents your brand perfectly. However, when it comes to content v/s design, the former wins hands down.
Content will help you see the profits in the long run and in fact design decisions and website layout should be created to support the content. An ordinary looking website with incredible content and great SEO can inch ahead of best looking websites hosting poor content.
In the words of web designer and author – Jeffery Zeldman: “Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design but decoration.”
5) Can I go wrong with content on my website?
The answer is a scary “Yes”. You can go wrong if you do not understand the customer intent and thought process involved in searching for something to learn or something to buy. Some common mistakes with content on websites includes:
- Too much of “Keyword Stuffing”
- Pages without content
- Promoting sites that is “Under Construction”
- Too much of pictures and graphics that are not read by Google and other search engines
- Less or nil emphasis on SEO structure that includes titles, headlines, description
- Use of Flash, Frames, Tables and other multiple pages without any purpose
- No CTA or share buttons
- No updates in the content with lot of static and non-pertinent resources
The essence of great website content is that you have something for every stage of buyer’s journey – whether they are getting aware about your brand, considering your products/services over others or are in the final decision phase just before the crucial buy.
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