The Internet has been around long enough for most of us to know what makes a good website. Design and layout are two of the most important features of a good website, but what about content? Does the content on your site draw and engage visitors? Or is your content used primarily as filler? Are you getting the most out of your content, or is your content simply getting the best of you? These are questions that you, the site owner, need to know.
One misconception about content writing and SEO (search engine optimization) is that is doesn’t have to be good. On the contrary, the content on ANY website has to be great. The content on your site needs to engage readers, it needs to provoke critical thinking, and most importantly, it needs to encourage readers to take action. It should encourage your visitors to look further (preferably through links already provided in the content) in order to make an informed decision. The last thing you want is for your content to be disengaging, confusing, or unintelligent because it will quickly cause readers to leave your site for good. When this happens, you’re not just losing a reader, you’re losing a customer. Let me reiterate – content writing should not only be good, it should be great. If the content on your website is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, you will lose all credibility with the reader, and in business, losing credibility almost always translates to losing a customer. It may seem like I’m mentioning “losing a customer” kind of often. . . that’s because odds are you happened upon this article while researching how to gain more visibility and in turn, more customers.
The hardest thing about writing content for a website is creating engaging thoughtful content while using SEO techniques for good search engine placement. Personally, I have seen some horrifying examples of SEO content that made no sense; keyword stuffing that littered content with words or phrases that didn’t fit sentence structure, ultimately creating articles of nonsensical jibberish. Trying to create content that achieves good search engine rankings is no easy task, but with a little time, practice and lots of patience, writers can not only write thoughtful and engaging content, they can also write it in a way that reaches the masses through both search rankings and social media.
The purpose of your sites’ content is to attract new visitors and customers. Creating content that informs, compels, and motivates visitors to an action is no easy task. The key to writing the right content is to help answer visitor’s questions and do it in a way that keeps them coming back for more. When you have a return visitor to your website, more than likely they have shared the information with another person who in turn becomes another visitor to your site, and so on and so on. It’s important to know who your audience is and what they are there for. A well-written heading can also drive traffic to your site and attract the attention of those visitors or customers who are seeking the information you have to offer.
So there you have it. Without good content, you don’t have much of a website. Without quality content, even the prettiest, most dazzling site with pictures of kittens in parkas throwing snowballs will have no credibility, and no place on the search engine page. I’m not saying that you need to go out and hire Ernest Hemingway to write your web copy, but I am hoping you will at least find someone with an intelligent grasp of the English language who knows a little about playing with words in order for your content-rich site to be of value. If you lay the ground work for good content, odds are you’ll gain visitors, who in turn become your customers.
Author: Pixel Productions Inc., a strategic graphic and web design company focused on continually finding creative and innovative strategies to implement with businesses who need brand design and marketing with impact.
