You’ve heard it before – probably more than you want. On the web, Content is King. But do you really pay attention?Do you have a content plan for your...
You’ve heard it before – probably more than you want. On the web,
Content is King. But do you really pay attention?
Do you have a content plan for your site – or are you just serving up the same old stuff you’ve been serving for years with the possible addition of a few news releases? And if you’re about to launch your first site, have you really considered – really considered - what’s going to fill the white space?
What is website content?
First let’s look at a definition. Your website content is more than just text – although text may be the single most important element on your site. “Website content” also refers to illustrations, demos, images (if they pertain to your product or service), videos, podcasts, downloadable PDFs, and anything else your visitors might look for on your site.
All too often, B2B marketers agonize over what a website looks like without giving much thought to what is being communicated. With this article, I hope to save you from making this same mistake.
Planning for the right website content.
The starting point for planning and developing your website content is – you guessed it – your visitors. Ask yourself these questions:
- Who are the people who are or will be coming to our site?
- Why are they there?
- What are they looking for?
- What questions do they have?
- In what format will they prefer to access the info?
- How can we best answer their questions and address their info needs?
Keep in mind that you’re almost sure to have different types of visitors with different questions and preferred answers. You could have prospects, existing customers, bloggers and journalists, industry analysts, investors, prospective employees and others that don’t come to mind off the top of my head. And in a complex business technology selling situation you’ll likely have a number of different types of prospects – executives, economic buyers, IT professionals, and users. Ask and answer these questions for each group.
Audit your current content.
Next, take a look at the content you already have. This includes any existing website context as well as collateral, presentations, demos, newsletters, articles, speeches, past webinars, training materials, testimonials, forums, whatever. Review each to determine what can be used as is, what needs to be modified and what needs to be created.
If you’re replacing or updating an existing site, resist the temptation to just roll over the existing content with the promise that “we’ll update it later”. The truth is that this almost never happens.
Many new clients come to us unhappy with their website performance, and they want a make-over. While there are very few of these sites that couldn’t use some improvement in the visual design area, it is not uncommon to find that greater performance improvements can be achieved through content changes. So, don’t skip this step.
Partner with a pro for content creation.
Now that you know what content needs to be updated or created, you can develop a plan for getting it done. Content creation can often be the gating factor in getting a new website up and running – and you may want to stage some of it.
For creating effective, persuasive content there’s nothing like a professional copywriter. This can be someone on your staff or an independent contractor you hire. The keyword here is “professional”. The ability to persuade with words – to move someone to action – is both a science and an art. Contrary to what many people want to believe, not everyone can write good copy.
This doesn’t mean you can just hire a copywriter and forget about it. You’re still responsible for providing the input and insight that leads to brilliant copy.
Keep adding content.
These days there are very good reasons for continuously expanding your content. One of them is returning visitors. For most business technology companies, website visitors are not likely to buy – or ask to speak with a sales person – on their first visit. You want them to keep coming back until they make up their minds. Fresh content is a great magnet.
A second reason to keep adding to your content is search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines love new content and active websites. Updating or adding to your website continuously can help your organic search ranking.
© 2008 Tatum Marketing Inc.
