In the first part of our blog series we explained why quality website content matters to your small business, and now we are going to offer guidance on creating content that produces customers. Before you begin the process of developing your website content think about what makes your website unique and engages visitors. Consider if your content is useful and will attract customers. Provide high-quality content on your website, particularly on your homepage, where users typically land and get a first impression. Your goal is to make your website stand out from your competition and keep your visitor engaged to and through your call to action.
Tips for Creating Web Content that Connects with Visitors:
- Create your pages with your users in mind, not for the sole purpose of search engine ranking.
- Create content that connects emotionally with your visitors.
- Create content that offers a solution to a problem.
- Avoid deceptive techniques and tricks to improve search engine results (this usually results in creating poor content).
- Monitor your website for hacking and remove hacked content as soon as it appears.
- Take steps to prevent and remove user-generated spam from your website.
Content
Content is king of the Google ranking factors. If your content contains helpful information and solves a problem you will attract visitors. Brainstorm keywords users will type to find your website. Make sure those keywords are included in the relevant content on your site and write pages that clearly describe your goods or services.
Links
Make sure that other sites link to your website. Links help Google crawlers locate your website and give you greater visibility in search results. From our previous blog, remember that Google’s algorithms are so sophisticated that they can distinguish natural links from unnatural links. Without getting too techie, in a nutshell, a natural link is the expected result of all the SEO and digital marketing, like blogging and social media marketing. For instance, a customer finds you through excellent content you created; consider that a natural link. An unnatural link is artificial with the intent of purposely manipulating a page’s ranking. Please note that only natural links are useful for the indexing and ranking of your site.
Accessibility
Create a website that is easily accessible, mobile and tablet friendly. Each page on your website should be accessible from at least one static text link. A static link is a web page that has a permanent and unchanged URL, like your homepage.
Things to Avoid When Creating Effective Content
- Avoid filling your web pages with keywords in an attempt to “cloak” pages. The term cloaking refers to a technique to try and trick search engines into giving a site a higher ranking.
- Skip using images to display important names, content or links as Google’s crawler does not recognize text contained in graphics.
- Steer clear of creating duplicate content. It creates issues for search engines when indexing and ranking your website and negatively impacts your web rankings and site traffic.
Make Small Content Changes that Have a Great Impact
Keep in mind that making little changes for the greater improvement of your website is key to moving your visitor to and through the call to action on your web page. Have a clear defined goal as to what you want your visitors to accomplish while on your page. If you do not know what that is, you should start there then consider these minor changes:
Website Offers/Promos or Specials
If your customers are not taking you up on what you are offering it may be time to change your offer. Get creative!
Social Media Advertising
Advertising on social media sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, increase brand awareness before a visitor even reaches your site. Although this process does take time and is not likely to convert to leads or sales right away, it is an effective tool in brand recognition and it is cost effective.
Remarketing
Increase brand familiarity by making a connection with visitors to your website who may not have made an immediate purchase on the initial visit to your site. Remarketing allows you to place targeted ads to help covert people who are already in the market for what you are selling while they browse elsewhere on the internet
Don’t waste your time or money on cloaking techniques. Google’s algorithms and technology are stellar, they spend their time-fighting fraud and cloaking will not work now or later. Let Tiny Giant Web Solutions help you with your content marketing strategy and your SEO efforts. A partnership with us will help you become a Tiny Giant while staying in Google’s good graces by abiding by their Webmaster Guidelines.
Click here to read Part 1-Understanding Why Quality Website Content Matters.
