Although you might put a great deal of effort, care, and money into designing your website, you might want to spend more time developing high-quality website content. Design strengthens your message, but it doesn’t stand alone.
But 65 percent of companies say that creating engaging content is challenging. Only 42 percent of B2B marketers believe that their content marketing strategies are effective. But 63 percent of marketers don’t even have a content marketing strategy.
Improve your efforts by improving the quality of your content. That doesn’t just mean that you should take an English class or hire a professional writer for your site. There are more factors than high-quality writing that go into creating website content that converts.
1. Keep Search Engines in Mind
If your content doesn’t appear on the first page of search results, you might be producing it for naught. Many people’s objective is to create compelling content. But that content doesn’t have any value if you don’t have website traffic in the first place.
Search engines rank your pages based on a complex algorithm. Some tools that you can use to improve the chances of coming up at the top of search engine results include:
- Doing keyword research
- Optimizing your keywords
- Making sure that your text is unique and not copied elsewhere on the Web
- Using active voice
- Linking internally to other pages on your website to “layer” your content
- Using meta tags properly; WordPress offers plug-ins to help you tag your content
2. Know Your Audience
If the whole point of creating website content is to engage your audience, you have to know what your target market wants. You’ve probably done this work as you developed your products and services. Keep it in mind as you craft your content.
Doing your homework might involve:
- Looking at what your competitors are doing
- Creating a client persona
- Analyzing website traffic to determine what content is doing well
- Conducting surveys
- Being aware of what your potential customers are asking on social media
You must have detailed knowledge of the problems and questions that your readers have. Once you know your audience’s needs, you can add value to their lives by creating content that answers their questions and delivers on their desires. How-tos, tutorials, case studies, troubleshooting advice and tips for overcoming problems add value to your content.
When it comes to providing value, make sure that your content is relevant. Keep an eye on current trends and newsworthy items. Every time you see someone else’s content go viral, ask how you could connect that information with your niche or industry. Using real-time information in your content is an excellent way to keep people coming to your site.
3. Showcase Your Values
Once you know your audience, you can get a better sense of their values. Almost 65 percent of consumers say that they develop trust for a brand when they have shared values. Sharing the mission behind your actions helps customers develop a connection with your company.
You’ll attract more of your target readers when you establish a personal connection with them. Don’t be afraid to add character to your content.
Consider your brand’s voice when writing for your website. Share personal stories. Acknowledge your readers’ issues and frustrations.
Write in the same way as you speak. You won’t impress your audience by using fancy jargon or big words. They want to understand you. Some content creators have success by recording themselves speaking about the theme of the article. You can then transcribe the recording to create high-quality content that’s relatable.
4. Focus on Format
The majority of website visitors decide to stay on a site for less than 15 seconds. That means that they don’t have time to read your carefully tailored content before they make a decision to stay or go.
You might argue that this is where web design can keep them engaged. You should also be aware that the format of your content can work aesthetically too. Headers, bulleted lists, infographics, numbered lists, charts, and graphs can capture readers’ attention, encouraging them to dig into the rest of the content.
Videos are some of the most effective components of a content marketing strategy. Businesses are increasing their use of videos on their websites. That’s because they know their audience.
More than half of the population would rather watch videos on the internet than live TV. Video consumption on mobile devices goes up by 100 percent yearly. Make sure that you include strong visuals, including videos and photos, on your website.
5. Use the Skyscraper Technique
The Skyscraper Technique is a process for making your content so enticing that other websites can’t help but link back to you. Backlinks, or inbound links, help consumers and search engines increase their confidence in your content.
Have you ever come across a website that linked out to another company and thought, “My business does the same thing. Why aren’t they linking to us?” The Skyscraper Technique allows you to improve your content so that these websites might create links to your subject matter instead.
Once you have found an article that another authority website has linked to, recreate that article. That doesn’t mean that you should copy it. You should create content with a similar message. But it must be better than the original article.
It might have more sources, new information, fresh insights, a better design or updated statistics. Then, reach out to the companies that have linked out to other, similar information. Let them know that your article is even more comprehensive than what they’re already linking out to. You know that there’s demand, and you just might get more backlinks with this technique.
6. Reference Sources
You can certainly write opinion pieces for your website. But you can improve your credibility by backing up your claims with cold, hard facts.
When you’re citing other websites in your articles, link back to the exact webpage where the content appears. It’s not enough to link to the homepage of the original website.
Also, make sure that the websites that you reference are high-quality, authority sites. This will not only help your SEO and page ranking, but it will also give your audience an idea of your integrity.
When you use facts in your writing, you can further optimize your content by making those individual snippets shareable on social media. There are WordPress plug-ins that you can use to help users grab the useful information and share it with their friends, which will bring more visitors back to your site.
7. Use the Inverted Pyramid
Because people have short attention spans, they need to get the most important information up front. Therefore, you should develop your content to deliver the essential tidbits at the beginning of your articles.
The inverted pyramid model of writing involves starting with the vital information. You can make the initial few paragraphs general, but use stories and engaging data to capture your readers’ attention and deliver what they want.
As you progress, get into the details. If your audience is captivated by the initial few sentences, they’ll likely keep reading.
Making your content stand out from the rest of the internet requires research, dedication and attention to detail. Most of the information that’s available online is generic and sounds similar, but there are some hidden treasures out there like this article or Respona’s 5 Strategies to Get Backlinks. You can make your content more memorable and useful by following the tips above.