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I've often seen the phrase 'content is king' kicking around on SEO websites and blogs, and I thought it was just some kind of in-speak for web design types, yet now I find I'm preaching it myself. The bottom line is that visitors aren't going to stick around unless your content is worth looking at. It's too easy for them to make quick-click decisions to leave your site - how are you going to stop them? It's a bit like TV, only quicker. When you're watching TV, for how long does a program have to bore you before you change the channel? I bet you give websites less time. Similarly, in magazines, how quickly do you turn the page of a boring article? Sometimes I don't even get to the content of an article - the pictures and headlines can be enough to tell me that it's not something I want to read. This applies to websites too. Getting people to actually stop and read your content is a challenge in itself, so don't let the content be disappointing. Let's say you have the perfect navigation menus, images, titles etc. so your visitors can find what they're after, and you have their attention. They have an expectation, and they're going to be a bit miffed if your content doesn't meet that expectation. There goes the return traffic... they're notgoing to come back if your content is sub-standard. Would you watch the second episode of a TV program or buy the second issue of a magazine if you'd been disappointed by the first? I see content as the final hurdle, and it can make or break a site. There are 2 reasons for this - the first, I have explained above (you don't want to disappoint your visitors), the second reason is that good, interesting, readable content is good for SEO. An over-SEO'd site that's jam packed full of nonsensical-but-keyword-rich content is going to annoy your eight-legged friends after a while. Spiders aren't stupid. Whilst it can be a good idea to write page titles, meta tags and links with the crawlers in mind, content should most definitely be written for people. If you're doing this effectively, your keywords and phrases will crop up anyway, and therefore you're ok as far as the spiders are concerned. I find that content is the hardest thing to get right, and it's hard to monitor. Volume of traffic alone isn't really an accurate measure of how a site is doing. To monitor content, its better to monitor the amount of time people are spending on a site, and which pages they're looking at. Writing and maintaining content is an ongoing, constantly evolving commitment. Ever the perfectionist, I'll never be happy with what I've written andI'll always be tweaking it, but this is not such a bad thing, asfresh content is good for SEO. I'm learning (and reluctantly accepting) that a webmistress's work is never done... | |||||||
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4.00 (Good) Vote:
February 8th There's no doubt that everything you said is true. You can spend thousands of dollars getting people to your site but if there's nothing there for them to grab onto they won't buy and they won't be back. If people are landing on your site and then leaving right away that should be a clue that you're not giving them what they want. Of course, there might be other problems besides the content, but that is a great place to start evaluating!
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5.00 (Excellent) Vote:
February 7th Totally agree and with an industry average of 2% (I read recently on gooruze) clearly al ot of work is still to be done to secure and convert the sale. I recall from my Direct Marketing days....hours were spent labouring over the letter, brochure and coupon, because it cost money to print these things and so was a considered process. Sure conversion was still low but I use to get a lot higher than 2%. I think web content is sometimes rushed together and we need to remember these old lessons. It is great to see so much of this "back to basics" knowledge being shared on gooruze. Reply
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5.00 (Excellent) Vote:
February 7th Jenny,
I agree with everything you say except for it being the final hurdle. I'd say it is the first hurdle, and the one at which just about every business falls over at. As you say, search engines love good, usable, useful content, you can't go wrong there. Content is also what converts browsers into buyers, again as you've alluded too. Finally, much research has pointed to the fact that online activity is responsible for driving offline spending. In other words, people are researching products and services online and then going and buying that exact product from a bricks and mortar outlet. A report I just read puts the figure at 256%., or for every dollar that is generated thru an online purchase, a further $2.56 is directly generated in offline sales. (And I'll have more to say on that on my on blog Breakthrough Ecommerce later.this month.) Now, if you regard content as a marketing strategy or tactic, is there anything else that has such a dramatic effect over those three areas? But as you say it is one of the hardest things to do and get right, so people tend to focus on the easy stuff and then wonder why their website isn't performing as well it should. Reply
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5.00 (Excellent) Vote:
February 8th Thanks for your comment silk. I mention content as the final hurdle from the visitor's perspective, because driving traffic to a site is all very well, but if content is bad, SEO efforts are wasted. I suppose general branding has a pretty dramatic effect. As you say, consumers check things out online before buying them in stores, and good content is reinforcing a brand. I think that the bigger picture is about online reputation management; brand, content, SEO, ads etc. are all collaborating in this. Also, customer service and public/market relations 'on the ground' are just as important to the company I'm involved in. Everything goes wrong if our existing customers aren't happy, and we try to maintain a good level of personal contact. For us, in a niche UK market, this kind of holistic approach works best, although our apporach will evlove as the business grows. P.S: How are you getting your comments to space out into paragraphs? Mine look jumbled and disorganised... Reply
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5.00 (Excellent) Vote:
February 8th Jenny,
I find myself agreeing with everything you've said yet again. The holistic or totally coordinated approach is definitely the way to go, sadly this becomes harder with bigger companies that often have competing internal SBUs with different objectives. That's why smaller comapny's are often better at it. The collaborative approach to reputation management, brand etc is especially pertinent, the only thing I would add is that online the customers have much more control over a company's brand etc than many companies realise. (But that's a whole nother post.) As for the spacing, yeh I got caught by that at first. Just double tap the return/enter key until it looks right. You can always go back and re-edit your old posts. (Hmm - re-edit? Sounds a bit tautological.) Reply
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February 8th Hmph. The spacing doesn't work for me. You're right about company size, and this is something I worry about as we grow. I know we're not going to be able to offer the same level of service and support; it's just not a scalable model. This too is another article, and one I might write in a month or so... Thanks again. It's reassuring for me that you think I'm on the right track. Reply
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(February 7th) (
I might hunt down the wish list and request an HTML editor.
