5 STEPS TO FILLING YOUR SITE WITH GREAT CONTENT
Today, content is king when it comes to increasing traffic to your website - and that doesn’t just apply to blogs, either. If you’re selling a product or a service, your sales potential is always going to be capped by the number of visitors to your site - and the best way to guarantee better numbers is to create great content.
No matter how many keywords are crammed into an article or how often you post, high-quality content is always going to do the best job of convincing your readers that you’re offering a legitimate, valuable service. What’s more, it seems that Google agrees with this too, with significant penalties being being dished out to content farms and value-light articles, and in-depth, relevant posts being boosted to the top pages of search results.
With that in mind, then, creating top-notch content should be an essential part of any lead generation plan. If you’re not sure where to start, here are 5 steps to help you get started.
1. Let everyone know what you've got to offer
Creating a page that describes exactly what your product or service provides might seem obvious, but you’d be amazed how many websites don’t have one - and there’s nothing more likely to put off prospective clients than failing to tell them precisely what you’re offering.
Even if you’re not offering something technical, this is still a handy resource to provide. Identify all of the most important points of your product/service - whether that be a breakdown of services, technical specifications, transactional info like shipping costs and delivery time estimates, or just what makes you qualified to write about your topic of choice - and pop them together on a page.
Software as a Service providers are one of the worst culprits when it comes to missing information. To avoid this, if you’re selling a tool, don’t get carried away with outcome-based sales pitches. While they’re great for promoting your product, your site visitors don’t just want to know that you’ll help them to be productive and innovative - they want to know how you’re proposing to do it.
2. Prove that you know your stuff
Showing an understanding of your market is a great way to inspire audience trust. Depending on what you’re selling, there are different ways to do this - our pick of the best are as follows:
Publish news stories and opinion pieces
If you’re operating within an industry that changes rapidly, then news and opinion articles are a great way to let people know that you’re keeping up to date with new trends and methodologies, and to showcase your own knowledge. You don’t need to constantly break new ground, or worry about packing your articles full of facts - you can still show that you know your stuff by giving your two cents on a trending issue, even if you’re a few days behind.
Create guides, ‘how to’s, and glossaries
If you’re aiming to reach an expert audience, this might not be so valuable - but if you’re targeting people that are new to your field, then explanatory materials are a great way to tell people more about what you do, and why you do it.
For more technical topics, ‘how to’ guides and glossaries can also help to make both your product and your website more accessible.
Make a killer FAQ
FAQs are a quick and easy way of giving information that’s hard to fit in elsewhere on your site. As well as presenting practical details, they can also be used to address common issues relating to your product or service, or to provide introductory information about your chosen field.
2. Give readers something to share
Basic guides are great for visitors to your site, but if you’re looking to increase your social presence or are hoping for backlinks, then it’s worth also making content that grabs readers’ attention, or which provides unique or desirable information.
3. Find out what people want to read
The cardinal rule of marketing is to always put you audience first - so the key to successful content isn't writing what you think is interesting, but what people actually want to read. Here are a few ways to do it:
Do plenty of influencer research
Influencers are the people with the most social media clout in your industry. Their success might come from experience and expertise, or it might come from a line in interesting and entertaining blog posts - either way, they’ll have thousands of followers, and a serious pay-off if you can get them to like or link to your content.
Of course, that kind of interaction doesn’t exactly happen every day, but it’s a good end goal to have. Keeping an eye on the topics that they regularly share or discuss is a good way to get an idea of what’s trending in your industry, and also increases the likelihood of catching their eye with your own content.
If you’re not sure how to find influencers, there are plenty of tools out there to help you out. BuzzSumo is a great option for finding high-value Twitter users, with a free version available, and Klout and Alltop are worth a look too.
Check competitor links
A useful technique for figuring out what kind of content other sites in your niche might link to is to browse through their articles and look for themes in the outbound links that they include, and consider producing something similar.
Of course, just because writers are linking out to news articles from Reuters or the BBC, that doesn’t mean that they’ll instantly snap up your news stories too - but if you notice that, for example, a lot of sites link out to writeups of statistics and studies, then it might be worth keeping tabs on new findings, or even conducting a survey of your own.
4. Mix your media
While text posts tend to be the easiest and cheapest content to produce, infographics and videos are grabbing large shares of the online audience - particularly when it comes to social sharing (link to article). So if you’ve got content that translates well to a video or audio medium, or if you’re targeting audiences and influencers that regularly share different types of media, then consider branching out to secure some extra views.
5. Sell, sell, sell!
Of course, this is what it all comes down to in the end. While valuable content will drive traffic to your site, create a positive brand image and improve your Google ranking, if you’re selling something then you need to make sure that your sales pages are top notch too.
If you’re selling to business clients, the best way to do this is to focus on the facts. Corporate buyers will mainly be looking for quick and easy information that tells them exactly what you’re offering, and what makes it different from its competitors. A clean layout, positive but direct language, and simple navigation will all help here.
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For normal consumers, it’s still important not to overload your text with obviously sales-focused language, and to make sure that all of the important information is easily available. However, you can also devote some space to evoking desirable emotions, or presenting a narrative for your target audience to engage with. For example, someone shopping for antivirus software is likely to be looking for a feeling of security - so using language that inspires trust and enforces the idea of safety and protection is likely to inspire them to buy.
No matter how many keywords are crammed into an article or how often you post, high-quality content is always going to do the best job of convincing your readers that you’re offering a legitimate, valuable service. What’s more, it seems that Google agrees with this too, with significant penalties being being dished out to content farms and value-light articles, and in-depth, relevant posts being boosted to the top pages of search results.
With that in mind, then, creating top-notch content should be an essential part of any lead generation plan. If you’re not sure where to start, here are 5 steps to help you get started.
1. Let everyone know what you've got to offer
Creating a page that describes exactly what your product or service provides might seem obvious, but you’d be amazed how many websites don’t have one - and there’s nothing more likely to put off prospective clients than failing to tell them precisely what you’re offering.
Even if you’re not offering something technical, this is still a handy resource to provide. Identify all of the most important points of your product/service - whether that be a breakdown of services, technical specifications, transactional info like shipping costs and delivery time estimates, or just what makes you qualified to write about your topic of choice - and pop them together on a page.
Software as a Service providers are one of the worst culprits when it comes to missing information. To avoid this, if you’re selling a tool, don’t get carried away with outcome-based sales pitches. While they’re great for promoting your product, your site visitors don’t just want to know that you’ll help them to be productive and innovative - they want to know how you’re proposing to do it.
2. Prove that you know your stuff
Showing an understanding of your market is a great way to inspire audience trust. Depending on what you’re selling, there are different ways to do this - our pick of the best are as follows:
Publish news stories and opinion pieces
If you’re operating within an industry that changes rapidly, then news and opinion articles are a great way to let people know that you’re keeping up to date with new trends and methodologies, and to showcase your own knowledge. You don’t need to constantly break new ground, or worry about packing your articles full of facts - you can still show that you know your stuff by giving your two cents on a trending issue, even if you’re a few days behind.
Create guides, ‘how to’s, and glossaries
If you’re aiming to reach an expert audience, this might not be so valuable - but if you’re targeting people that are new to your field, then explanatory materials are a great way to tell people more about what you do, and why you do it.
For more technical topics, ‘how to’ guides and glossaries can also help to make both your product and your website more accessible.
Make a killer FAQ
FAQs are a quick and easy way of giving information that’s hard to fit in elsewhere on your site. As well as presenting practical details, they can also be used to address common issues relating to your product or service, or to provide introductory information about your chosen field.
2. Give readers something to share
Basic guides are great for visitors to your site, but if you’re looking to increase your social presence or are hoping for backlinks, then it’s worth also making content that grabs readers’ attention, or which provides unique or desirable information.
3. Find out what people want to read
The cardinal rule of marketing is to always put you audience first - so the key to successful content isn't writing what you think is interesting, but what people actually want to read. Here are a few ways to do it:
Do plenty of influencer research
Influencers are the people with the most social media clout in your industry. Their success might come from experience and expertise, or it might come from a line in interesting and entertaining blog posts - either way, they’ll have thousands of followers, and a serious pay-off if you can get them to like or link to your content.
Of course, that kind of interaction doesn’t exactly happen every day, but it’s a good end goal to have. Keeping an eye on the topics that they regularly share or discuss is a good way to get an idea of what’s trending in your industry, and also increases the likelihood of catching their eye with your own content.
If you’re not sure how to find influencers, there are plenty of tools out there to help you out. BuzzSumo is a great option for finding high-value Twitter users, with a free version available, and Klout and Alltop are worth a look too.
Check competitor links
A useful technique for figuring out what kind of content other sites in your niche might link to is to browse through their articles and look for themes in the outbound links that they include, and consider producing something similar.
Of course, just because writers are linking out to news articles from Reuters or the BBC, that doesn’t mean that they’ll instantly snap up your news stories too - but if you notice that, for example, a lot of sites link out to writeups of statistics and studies, then it might be worth keeping tabs on new findings, or even conducting a survey of your own.
4. Mix your media
While text posts tend to be the easiest and cheapest content to produce, infographics and videos are grabbing large shares of the online audience - particularly when it comes to social sharing (link to article). So if you’ve got content that translates well to a video or audio medium, or if you’re targeting audiences and influencers that regularly share different types of media, then consider branching out to secure some extra views.
5. Sell, sell, sell!
Of course, this is what it all comes down to in the end. While valuable content will drive traffic to your site, create a positive brand image and improve your Google ranking, if you’re selling something then you need to make sure that your sales pages are top notch too.
If you’re selling to business clients, the best way to do this is to focus on the facts. Corporate buyers will mainly be looking for quick and easy information that tells them exactly what you’re offering, and what makes it different from its competitors. A clean layout, positive but direct language, and simple navigation will all help here.
--
For normal consumers, it’s still important not to overload your text with obviously sales-focused language, and to make sure that all of the important information is easily available. However, you can also devote some space to evoking desirable emotions, or presenting a narrative for your target audience to engage with. For example, someone shopping for antivirus software is likely to be looking for a feeling of security - so using language that inspires trust and enforces the idea of safety and protection is likely to inspire them to buy.
Written as blog content for a small marketing agency, 2017.