Should I have a flashy website? What is a flashy website? Video? Music? Spokesperson? High Resolution Pictures? These are just a small fraction of the questions when folks starting thinking about content and what type of content is best suited for them. Clearly, if you are a professional such as a doctor, lawyer or CPA you won’t seek to be “flashy;” instead you will seek to have strong textual content, which is concise, precise and unquestionably professional. If you have an entertainment site you would seek content that is, in fact, entertaining i.e. the use of strong visual content with less text. These obvious differences aside let’s delve a bit further into the best type of content for winning websites.
Exceptional websites are all loaded with high quality content. Content, in the form of articles, blogs, eBooks and FAQ’s make up the core of most of the truly successful websites. It can be the difference between a website that sees increasing traffic and conversion rates and one that is simply dead in the water. Textual content is still the most important fundamental content you absolutely must have for your successful website. The search engines need to scan your site to understand what the site is all about and how it stacks up against other sites to rank you based on relevance and authority. They scan text the best by far. Full Flash sites are not favored by the search engines. Your site needs to be visible before it can convert. Understanding this, knowing just what type of content to include can be difficult, especially if you do not posses a talent for writing. There are several crucial factors to keep in mind when deciding what content to include on your website. By adhering to these basic principles, it should be easy to determine what to include and what to omit.
Focus
The content for your website should have a primary focus. Content that is too broad or covers too much material is confusing to the reader and isn’t likely to generate high search engine rankings either. Instead, pick a primary focus topic and make sure all of your content supports that goal. If your website is designed to cover several topics, make sure the content for each individual page has its own focus. For example, you may have a website about ‘machines,’ a very broad topic. Consider dedicating a separate page, with its own unique content, to specific types or models of machines works best.
Keywords
Successful content will be keyword driven; but only to a certain extent. Simply put, keywords are popular and relevant terms that relate directly to your key topic. Using our fictitious machine website again, you may want to use keywords such as machine, [machine type or model] or [machine use or application]. Research shows that these words are critical when it comes to people interested in machines. There are multiple free websites that can help you determine what keywords will be relevant for your particular site, just be sure to focus in on the top 10-15 words and don’t go overboard. Focus on these first and don’t try to rank for all words at once because it just won’t work, particularly with the search engines as they need to know what your focus really is.
It Isn’t All About SEO
Avoid getting caught up in SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a major buzzword for content today, but it should not be the driving factor behind your content. An article may be ‘perfect’ from the SEO standpoint but may not be easy to read, coherent or clear. Make sure your content is error free, unbiased, clear and to the point. It is not enough to simply string together a bunch of keywords, hoping that the search engine spiders will rank you higher. You want to make sure that when a visitor does arrive at your site your material makes sense to them. Write for humans, not for spiders. If you consistently add well written, human-driven content, the SEO will generally take care of itself.
Appeal
Never forget to consider your target audience first. Your content should strive to elicit a response from your readers be it a call to action, a call to buy or simply a call to consider.
At the end of the day, you want content that will be interesting to your readers and to the search engine spiders. It is simply the best way to guarantee increased traffic. Carefully consider your options when buying or writing content for your website to include clear, concise writing that has a focus and is driven by, but not written for, keywords.
Can’t write? No time? Contact us … that’s why we’re here.
What Type of Content is Best for My Site
Exceptional websites are all loaded with high quality content. Content, in the form of articles, blogs, eBooks and FAQ’s make up the core of most of the truly successful websites. It can be the difference between a website that sees increasing traffic and conversion rates and one that is simply dead in the water. Textual content is still the most important fundamental content you absolutely must have for your successful website. The search engines need to scan your site to understand what the site is all about and how it stacks up against other sites to rank you based on relevance and authority. They scan text the best by far. Full Flash sites are not favored by the search engines. Your site needs to be visible before it can convert. Understanding this, knowing just what type of content to include can be difficult, especially if you do not posses a talent for writing. There are several crucial factors to keep in mind when deciding what content to include on your website. By adhering to these basic principles, it should be easy to determine what to include and what to omit.
Focus
The content for your website should have a primary focus. Content that is too broad or covers too much material is confusing to the reader and isn’t likely to generate high search engine rankings either. Instead, pick a primary focus topic and make sure all of your content supports that goal. If your website is designed to cover several topics, make sure the content for each individual page has its own focus. For example, you may have a website about ‘machines,’ a very broad topic. Consider dedicating a separate page, with its own unique content, to specific types or models of machines works best.
Keywords
Successful content will be keyword driven; but only to a certain extent. Simply put, keywords are popular and relevant terms that relate directly to your key topic. Using our fictitious machine website again, you may want to use keywords such as machine, [machine type or model] or [machine use or application]. Research shows that these words are critical when it comes to people interested in machines. There are multiple free websites that can help you determine what keywords will be relevant for your particular site, just be sure to focus in on the top 10-15 words and don’t go overboard. Focus on these first and don’t try to rank for all words at once because it just won’t work, particularly with the search engines as they need to know what your focus really is.
It Isn’t All About SEO
Avoid getting caught up in SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a major buzzword for content today, but it should not be the driving factor behind your content. An article may be ‘perfect’ from the SEO standpoint but may not be easy to read, coherent or clear. Make sure your content is error free, unbiased, clear and to the point. It is not enough to simply string together a bunch of keywords, hoping that the search engine spiders will rank you higher. You want to make sure that when a visitor does arrive at your site your material makes sense to them. Write for humans, not for spiders. If you consistently add well written, human-driven content, the SEO will generally take care of itself.
Appeal
Never forget to consider your target audience first. Your content should strive to elicit a response from your readers be it a call to action, a call to buy or simply a call to consider.
At the end of the day, you want content that will be interesting to your readers and to the search engine spiders. It is simply the best way to guarantee increased traffic. Carefully consider your options when buying or writing content for your website to include clear, concise writing that has a focus and is driven by, but not written for, keywords.
Can’t write? No time? Contact us … that’s why we’re here.