The saying "Content is King" is more true now than ever before. Content is one of the most important parts of any website. It drives visitors to your site, educates them, and is the determining factor for how many visitors convert to leads. Content also attracts search engines and helps them to determine where your website belongs among all of the other sites online.
Content when not used properly can also be your biggest enemy. If the content is too cluttered or unclear, or if it holds no value to your visitors they will quickly leave to look elsewhere. Below are 4 best practices for creating successful website content to keep visitors on your site longer:
Keep your messaging clear
When creating content always keep your customer in mind. Can someone new to your site understand what page they are on and what it is about? Do they know what to do next? You can your visitors along by creating headlines and subheadlines to break up your content. And always make sure to include clear call-to-actions and next steps.
Educate and offer value
Although your website is a sales tool, it isn’t meant to be a hard sale. Visitors may end up on your site at various points through their customer journey. It is important to educate your users and offer them good information throughout their entire decision making process. Offer different types of content from blogs and newsletters to downloadable guides and videos.
Quality above quantity
Everyone thinks that having lots of content is better than having good content, but everyday search engines are getting smarter and buyers are becoming more discerning. Today quality content is truly king. Offer unique content to stand out from the crowd and keep visitors on your site longer. Always write for humans, not search engines. The old rules required for top keyword rankings are no longer relevant. So keep your content easy to read and informative for your users.
Make content shareable and social-ready
Today people are more connected than ever before, and there are 100s of different types of networks that allow them to interact and share content with each other. Make sure that it is easy for users to share your content on the most popular social networks. Sharing plugins like ShareThis make it easy for you to add customized sharing widgets to pages on your website. Above all it is important to create unique and relevant content that includes images or videos to attract others to share the content with their friends.
These are just a few important best practices for creating great website content. For more tips and tricks for driving traffic and increasing leads, click the button below to get our free e-book!
