How do I make my website content bring in more traffic?
- 27th August 2018
- Blog
- 4:06 reading time (ish)
- 780 words
Perhaps you’ve never refreshed your website content since the day it was originally created? Or, maybe you’ve never even thought about refining it, simply under the impression that once it’s there, it’s there — that’s one job that’s been done and dusted, never to be thought about again…
You may even realise that your online content could do with some work, but like a small growing crack in the wall you carry on ignoring those typos and spelling mistakes because quite frankly you don’t have the time to fix them — besides who’s going to notice anyway?
A small crack however can be easily fixed when it’s small, but give too many people a bad impression online and your business could end up crumbling in the long run. Customers expect you to display a certain level of professionalism and website content littered with errors won’t say the best it could about your business.
Your website is your shop window and is often where your potential customers will make their first impression of you — with so much choice online it takes seconds to click off your website and onto somebody else’s.
Catch those customers quick!
It’s not only your company’s image that your online content can influence. Good content optimised for search engines will bring the essential traffic and leads to your website. And when they do land on your website you’ll want to grab visitors tight — engaging and useful content with strategy behind it will trap those visitors like flies on fly paper.
This is the reason that many bigger companies employ a content marketing agency or a full-time professional copywriter to keep on top of their website content. However, for smaller set ups budgets are tight and very often existing team members, or business owners have done what they can on limited time without really understanding the craft and the strategy behind content that works online.
“Online marketing isn’t something new for small businesses to consider anymore. In fact, it’s quite the opposite…having been going on for years and seemingly has no end in sight. Yet, far too many small business owners neglect how important online marketing is for their business success.” says Nicole Leinbach Reyhle in an interesting Forbes article.
You may think that a swish new website will attract new visitors, but without good content, search engines won’t be able to find it, making your website rank low in search engine results. If you want your business to start working for you online then you need to start refining your website’s content.
Five things you can do to improve your content today
- Go through every bit of content on your website and correct any spelling and grammatical mistakes — if you’re no Charles Dickens put it all into a word document and spell check it. Or, maybe there’s someone you know who’s a bit of a wordsmith? Get them to go through it all for you — a second pair of eyes can make all the difference.
- Include the sort of key words and phrases people looking for the sort of products or services you sell would type into search engines like Google. Use them appropriately and in context.
- If you’ve gone completely the other way and have stuffed your website full of keywords to the point that it makes little sense to the reader, then you’ll want to change this quick. Google wants to perform the best job it can for the person searching, so it rewards content that is informative to visitors. Your web page can be penalised by Google if it looks like spam.
- Provide content that is useful, informative and engaging to your target audience – make sure the content sounds human and real rather than one big sales pitch. Buyers who feel they’ve received valuable information will reward you with their trust and business.
- Keep it fresh — update your website’s content and blog regularly — it’s fresh content that keeps the visitors coming in. Take off any unnecessary information about old contact details, stock, or services and staff members that you no longer employ.
The content you display can either make you look switched on, professional and slick, or sloppy and totally inept. You can make some instant changes today that will make a start on helping to improve your website content.
If you need a content strategy, a thorough search engine optimisation (SEO) audit of your website, or a blogging and content marketing service to take some of the pressure off, then please do feel free to get in touch.