Attracting visitors to your site is important, making them stay on site and having them return time and again is even more so.
The most successful way to achieve true sustainability in your web endeavours is to build a rich, informative, and engaging content driven website.
Content keeps your website fresh, and offers visitors a reason to return often. It also serves as a fantastic tool for building links and strengthening your SEO strategy. Good content gets shared with fellow users and is a great way to build in-coming links.
It is important to avoid ‘black-hat’ web tactics to ensure continued success. The search engines will quickly pick up on issues such as keyword stuffing, mislabelled content etc. You can do this by steering clear of plagiarism, copying and pasting blocks of text, avoiding re-cycled content, and through consistently updating your website with new content.
So how do you build a fresh content driven web-empire?
1. Ask yourself questions about your target market
Who are you trying to attract? What are their ages? Is it for novice users or are you writing for advanced experts in a field? Asking these questions will give you a rudimentary idea of the type of content that you should be focusing on. Cutting all the content that doesn’t exactly target your users is the first step towards a unified web-presence.
2. Do a comprehensive study of your target audience
You can find out a lot about your users through basic questionnaires when they sign up for your services. You can entice visitors to sign up by offering freebies such as white papers or extra content. Another great source of information on your target markets current search habits and topics of interest in to have a look at Google’s set of keyword tools — Trend; Insight; Analytics; and Keyword Research. The information will give you a better understanding of how users find sites in your field, what the popular search terms are and where they are coming from.
3. Find new innovative angles on topics for your target market
Study content that is available from competitors sites. Look for missing information, articles that aren’t properly constructed or that simply isn’t engaging. You can use this information to write better, more informed content. There might be a need for more technical content, or simplified versions for less informed readers. Sometimes all you need is conveying the same information through a unique lens. Always remember to tailor your content for your target market.
4. Offer visitors information that is usable, actionable and/or entertaining
The only reason that visitors stay on any particular website is if it engages them. Useful, actionable and practical content is a necessity. Based on your research on your target market you can identify content that is appropriate and that visitors will find useful. It helps to make difficult subjects entertaining too!
5. Keep a consistent tone of voice
Consistency is the key to building a solid and sustainable subscriber base. Keep the tone of your content on the same level. If you have a serious website, keep the content short and succinct. If your market is young and looking to pass some time at work, give them something to laugh at and share with their colleagues. But always make sure that the content remains on target and within the framework of your desired audience. Changing the tone of your website will only serve to alienate a subscriber base that you’ve worked very hard to build up.
Content helps to make your business website better by providing your visitors with useful information, to the point data and a means to find solutions to their problems and requirements.
If you follow these basic guidelines, you’ll be well on your way towards building a sustainable value based website that drives content.
To find out more about the services offered by Digital Pacific including domain names and web hosting, visit www.digitalpacific.com.au or give our friendly team a call on 1300 MY HOST.
