Creating Effective Website Content

Let’s start at square one on this topic.  Before we even talk about what you want to write about in your website, we need to understand what it is your customers will search for.  The question to ask yourself is, “What will my customer type into the search box in the search engine?” 

Be careful, because it may not be what you think.  For example, insurance agents tend to talk about “auto insurance” while insurance customers tend to search for info on “car insurance” – at a clip of about 40:1!  So if an insurance agent has lots of information about auto insurance on his website and his potential customers keep asking Google to teach them about car insurance, the likelihood that they’ll find his website at all is almost zero.  So be careful in choosing your sites wording that you utilize the words that your customers use.

In addition to the terms that people use, you’ll also want to add in terms that convey the geography that your business draws customers from as well.  This can be the towns, regions, states, and/or countries that you draw customers from.  You’ll see what I mean in the examples that follow.

Now that you have this list of hot terms – or keywords to use the “official” term – what should you do with them?  If this was still 2002, you could have used any number of tricks to “stuff” your website full of these key words.  And doing so would have rocketed your site to the top of the rankings.  But in 2010, these very same tricks will drop you in the search rankings like a rock.  Don’t even think about it.

Yet you still want to lace these keywords into your website in ways that help the search engines to decide to send your potential customers to you.  The easiest way to do that now is to… include these words and phrases on your site in grammatically correct sentences.  I know, I know.  “That’s your big trick, Greg?”  Actually, the trick to leveraging your keywords these days is to abandon any attempt at tricking the search engines – sort of.

Most of my customers tend to want to shut down when I share this info with them.  They seem to hope that tricks are still available to them, as they want a short cut to the top if at all possible.  However, I’ve just told you that there are no short cuts and the initial thought of having to come up with creative and compelling content from scratch seems to bog most people down before they even get started.

Keep your chin up.  It is easier than that.  And thankfully, I’ve come up with some “tricks” to make your job easier.  In fact, these simple formulas will make adding fresh content to your website very easy, and you can do so in a way that will impress both the search engines and your potential customers as well.

The easiest way that I’ve found to write copy that includes the keywords your customers use is to write about interactions with your existing customers. 

Option #1.  Pick your most memorable conversation of the day and recap it on your website. 

Try something along the lines of:

A couple from Ashland came into the store today looking for a new lens for their digital camera.  They had an interest in close up photography and asked my advice on which macro photography lens would be the best one for them to purchase.

We talked about the Cannon and Kodak lenses but they were on more of a budget than that.  As they still felt themselves to be novices at taking these kinds of photos, we finally settled on a simple, fixed close up lens from Nikon.

They have promised to bring in some of their pictures they’ll take of the wild flowers up on Table Rock.  We’ll post them here on the site to share with you when they do.

As you can see, this update that took just a few minutes to write has over a dozen keywords laced in it.  As these words show up again and again in the new content you are adding to the site, the search engines will become more and more sure that your site is the area’s expert on your given topic.

Option #2.  Write the answer to “those” questions that you get all the time. 

This strategy has a couple of major benefits.  First, if you get a question all the time – whether in person, on the phone, or via email – you can be sure that people are asking this question to Google as well.  So do you both a favor by putting the answer where Google can find it for them.  As you add these questions and answers to your site, this will further boost your score with the search engines over time.  Plus, if your customers can get some of their questions answered online, they won’t need to ask you directly – saving you valuable time.   Hint – this topic is one of “those” questions for me.

Option #3.  Make something custom?  Receive in a really cool shipment of ______? 

Snap a picture (or take a video) and talk about it on your website.  It should go with out saying that the things you do all the time should be on your website.  The problem is, the “regular” stuff is rarely unique and your competition probably has something similar available and shown on their website.  These custom or “extra mile” projects are where your business can really shine – showcasing those little things that make your business unique.

I’m sure that these three ideas all bring multiple topics to mind for you.  Writers block should be easy to push away for quite some time as you flesh out your new website.  As you are writing away, here are some additional bonus points you can score with the search engines:

1. Links to more information.  Where possible, you’ll want to add in links from the new info you are creating. 
   1. You should link from this new information to other parts of your site.  Talking about someone who signed up for your store’s charge card?  Provide a link to the application.  Talking about the new 2010 model of your widget?  Provide a link to the close out specials on the 2009s. 
   2. Additionally, you’ll want to link to outside sources as well.  This can include vendors, customers, partner companies, any site that adds value to the discussion.
   3. One of the most effective places you can link to is the page on eSouthernOregon where your business’ reviews are listed.  This will allow potential customers to read reviews from other people, plus it will allow current customers to add new review.  Reviews are one of the things the search engines love most these days – particularly when they are on a 3^rd party site like eSouthernOregon – so encourage all of your customers to help you in this way.  To find the right page to link to, visit the site’s home page, search for your business, then click on the review tab.  Copy the URL from the top of the browser and you have your link.
2. Regularly updates.  Search engines like sites that are updated on a reasonably regular basis.  For most businesses, the right frequency is weekly.  This means about 50 updates / additions to your site in the course of a year.  If you can achieve this goal and your competition only updates their site sporadically, you will eventually win out in search engine rankings.
3. Traffic boosts.  Search engines like sites that get more traffic, relatively speaking, over those that don’t.  Come up with some creative reasons for your offline customers to visit your website (offer online coupons perhaps?).  Then, using what you learned in #1 above, give people reasons to visit more than one page on your site.  They learn more about you, and you get a boost to your page view count to boot.

So if you are still reading at this point, congratulations.  You have the essential tools to create a website that will win out over the competition over time.  Give these strategies a try and see how you can apply them to your business. 

Questions on what you’ve learned here?  Ready for the next steps?  Please give me a call.