There are a lot of people that manage websites and are experts in their field, but their websites are not doing well. So, they might be losing their sleep at night wondering what’s wrong. And why they can’t reach success like others that might, in some cases, have less knowledge than those experts.
Without doubt, there’s something wrong? But, website owners that are in such situation probably don’t ask the true question. What they are not doing right?
Every website has some particular characteristics of success, but all websites have one uniting them, website visitors (traffic). In order to get traffic, the website should have a good presence in some channels where visitors come from.
The main generator of website traffic is search engines because this is the first place where people go to search when they look for something.
The main generator of website traffic is search engines because this is the first place where people go to search when they look for something.
Logically, to get traffic to your website from search engines, your website has to rank well in search engines for main terms (keywords) related to what you do.
Search Engine ranking is something controlled by different rules that have been changing and evolving over the years with the development of the web.
In addition to the website design, how the website is SEO friendly, number of back links, social media presence, there’s one of the factors which is crucial, namely content.
Your content is what determines relevance, importance, and specificity of your website. The kind of content on your website and how it is organized and presented for readers determines in high percentage success of your website.
As developed by web marketers few years ago, the phrase “Content is King” is still leading the web. Even when you think that you are expert in your field and your content is unparalleled with what’s topping the SERPs (search engine results page), but you need to see it from web angle to meet success you deserve. Your ideas are important, but how you present them is more important.
So what are factors of successful content on a website?
Content Presentation
The way your content is presented and organized is of great importance. Unlike reading on pages of a book, readers of a website don’t read word by word especially when they just land on your page.
Instead, they scan content on your page with an eye on something that would attract their attention. If your content does not present something from the kind, the visitor might leave.
So, you should concentrate on making your content easily read and scanned. That’s why you need to avoid long blocks of text because readers will simply ignore them.
You need to make your paragraphs as small as possible, and try not to overcome 3 to 4 sentences for each paragraph.
Also you can make your content easily read by using subheadings, lists, quotes…etc. And most importantly include images that catch the reader’s attention.
Yet choosing relevant pictures for your post isn’t always an easy task. So, make sure that you invest some time picking the right pictures. Keep in mind that people love visuals better than text.
Your Reader Comes First
While creating content, just don’t be selfish, and keep in line with the rule that the priority in what you are doing is for the benefit of your audience. Naturally, human being tends to talk about self and be in the middle of the equation. You should avoid that, and instead put the interest of your readers’ interest primary, and enclose yourself away from the equation.
In that context, you should then avoid using personal pronouns We, Me, US, and go instead for pronoun YOU. Because even when readers come to your website, actually they are not interested in you or your brand, but they look for their benefit in broad term.
Maybe they want answers for certain questions, maybe they want to buy some products they need, maybe they want to enrich their knowledge…etc. Thus, ask yourself if your website can be the good source for them.
Content Quality
When your content is helping in improvement of the reader’s experience and your website adds value, you will be loved for that and readers will share your content and link back to it.
The value of that quality content you are offering and how people interact with your content will in turn impact search engines’ love for your website.
Meaning, you’ll do well in search engine ranking. I say doing well instead of topping the rankings because other people are investing efforts to do the same like you. At the end, those that make more efforts will win the top ranking battle.
Content Titles
You may invest huge time and efforts in creating great content, but don’t invest enough time to write a good headline.
The first thing that catches a reader’s eye even before coming to your website is the title. So, writing a catchy title isn’t a choice but a must. So, you need to take enough time to write an attractive title before hitting publish button.
Among the factors that make a title attractive and grabs people’s attention is the inclusion of numbers. Titles with numbers included attract more readers than title including text only. Yet, not all content is fit to be included with numbers. So, do not enforce things!
To make sure that you have a good headline for your post, you need to create different samples. Then you will have number of choices to choose from.
Avoid making your titles too short or too long.
Like inside your content body, you need to talk to your readers’ emotions in your titles, mainly their curiosity. People are naturally curious, and when your headline succeeds to raise their curiosity, there’s a high chance they will click in.
By attracting a reader to hit your link, you have made your half way to success.
Story Telling
People love stories by nature. Stories, if told in a good way captivate people’s attention. So, when you share content formulated like a story, it will grab the reader’s attention.
Maybe your content isn’t something that could bear being told in a story. Then, you can create such story telling content based on your brand or personal experience.
You can for instance write about how the brand arrived to that stage in which it is now, or how you arrived to that brand.
You can talk about the ups and downs over the way and kind of hurdles, mistakes, lessons learned, and so on.
People will learn a lot from your experience, and others will get inspired. And you will build a human relationship with your audience, which is one of the clues of business success.
Constant Research
Good ideas to improve into a complete post or include in your coming posts don’t necessarily come during your writing session. Hence, you need to keep in constant research even when you are not planning to write.
When you find something that worth being written about, you can put the idea down or save the link to check it later when you are ready. If you go into this idea collection process while surfing the web, you will find out that a lot of work has been done for your next piece of writing.
To save valuable links you come across while searching, you need to have an organized list for those links. To organize your favorite links, you can use tools like Evernote for example.
Optimize for SEO
Writing good content for users is the first thing to focus on, but you also need tour content to be optimized for search engines. Meaning, your content has to be implemented with rich keywords that search engines users would search for.
Thinking of keywords does not mean only keywords formed of 2 or 3 words; but you should also consider including long tail keywords in your content.
If you don’t know what long tail keywords are, they are keywords formed of phrases related to what your content is about.
Yet, if you focus about keywords from the beginning you will end up creating poor content in the eyes of users that has to be your primary goal.
So in your first draft, you never think about SEO or any keyword matters. Just hurry up to put down any ideas that come to your mind.
The second step comes to do some editing. Then a final step comes, the search and inclusion of keywords.
One of the great ways to search for keywords is Google Keyword Planner.
You can check this video that explains how to use Google Keyword Planner.
You can also use Ubersuggest to get different suggestions for your keywords.
After you have found keywords for your content, then you will go along and make sure you include those keywords in your content. But, never enforce that inclusion where it looks unnatural. Instead the appearance of keywords in your content should be in normal places within the context.
No matter what you learn about content marketing, you need to always keep up to date to refine your methodology and how to create quality content that will boost your website and business success.
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