Get Better Leads! 10 Content Tips for Your Website.

Your website is one of the most important places to showcase your business and industry expertise. Visitors are drawn to your site for a specific reason, and it’s your job to ensure that you answer their questions and use your site as a platform for selling your products and/or services. To customers, your website is the first impression of who you are as a business. Your goal is to give them what their looking for, and provide them with reasons to keep coming back.

When constructing a website, there are definitely some rules to adhere to. Whether you want to keep your site simple, or add all of the bells and whistles available – there are basic (yet essential!) must-have’s to include in order to keep your website active, relevant and “Google friendly”.

Above and beyond these key website elements, it’s the content that really makes your site valuable – and it’s vital to ensure your content is top quality. This means that your content should be tailored to your target audience. Make sure that it’s written in the right voice and that it’s apparent to your visitors why your offering is superior to your competitors. Your content should answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

Here are ten useful tips to follow, in order to get the most out of your content and boost your site from good to great.

DESIGN AN ENGAGING HOMEPAGE

This is your opportunity to capture a potential lead and provide a summary of who you are and what you offer. It’s crucial to make this content visually appealing and engaging, because it needs to grab your visitors’ attention within the first few seconds they land on the page. You do not have to include your elevator pitch on this page – but be sure to give a brief description of what you do, and outline (or bullet list) your products and services, and how they will benefit the visitor. Think of it as the actual storefront to your shop. If it doesn’t best represent who you are as a business and appears cluttered and unorganized, why would anyone care to step foot inside?

PROVIDE FAQ’S.

This is your opportunity to address questions that your target audience asks on a consistent basis. These may be questions that are repeatedly asked, questions that solve possible objections, questions that help to remove any barriers and questions that pertain to the selling of your product/service. Always post the questions in a positive fashion in order to keep your reader interested. This means you need to creatively (and honestly) persuade visitors to trust you and engage further, as you guide them through your sales funnel.

PUBLISH TESTIMONIALS

People love to read reviews. According to TripAdvisor, 77% of all travellers reference online reviews before purchasing vacations. The same behavior applies for movie reviews, restaurant reviews, concert reviews and so on. Your business is no different. People want to hear honest feedback and learn about your customer’s experiences before them. There are two ways to include testimonials. You can either put them on their own page or you can scatter them throughout your site. A solid reputation is important, and your testimonials are powerful. We recommend making them easily accessible for your site visitors to review.

OFFER MANY CALLS-TO-ACTION.

A strong, decisive call-to-action will help generate future sales and capture future customers. The most effective calls-to-action have a clear, explicit purpose; there’s no harm in telling people what you want from them, such as “Book a consultation” or even “order now!” At the end of the day, your website could be the most entertaining and educational site on the web, but if you don’t promote “next steps” and push your prospects to contact you (or purchase!) your efforts will be lost.

PROVIDE SIGN-UP FORMS.

Grab their attention, along with their information! Email is an invaluable tool to create loyal customers and increase sales. Stay connected with your customers and potential customers by asking them to sign up to receive your online newsletter. Attaining qualified email addresses (new leads!) is probably the best thing you can do for your website and your business.

PROMOTE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA

This platform has fluently become a no-brainer when it comes to website fundamentals because social media is a critical part of marketing your business. Integrating these platforms into your website will help boost your SEO, improve your business’ footprint on the social web and build your popularity/following across numerous social platforms. Let’s remember the most important fact here: social media is FREE. There is no reason your business should not participate. You don’t need to be fluent across every single social platform, but being active on at least one or two proves that you are up-to-date and in touch with the current happenings and trends within your industry.

POST INTERESTING BLOGS

Blogs are the #1 way to position your company as an industry leader. By publishing detailed and helpful content, you’re inviting your site visitors to share it across social media. This kind of content is both readable and informative; it frequently includes how-to lists, helpful advice and/or a list of the most effective ways to solve a certain problem directly related to your products or services. Don’t forget to keep them unique, and promote them in as many places as possible. Linking valuable and informative content to your business proves that there is a lot of substance and leadership behind your operations.

USE VIDEO

Let’s face it. It’s 2017 and YouTube remains the second most popular search engine on the planet. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned from years past, it’s that Google. Loves. Video.
Watching a quick video that explains your company, your craft, your services and/or client testimonials is one of the most popular ways to connect with a targeted audience. A video can portray a company message within seconds, and make it significant and interactive. And since Google purchased YouTube and integrated video into its search engine demands, website video content increases the odds of your business being found through an organic search. There are several noteworthy production companies that specialize in sharing unique brand stories through video, such as Crucial Pictures and CNW Group. Remember, quality is just as important when it comes to online video as it is when producing any other form of content.

INSERT IMAGERY

If your target audience is searching for more instructional and/or information-based content, then upbeat, easily digestible and engaging images will get a lot more attention than plain text. Site visitors are more likely to click on links and read through content if it includes photos. Whether it be stock photos or your own professional photos, visual elements undoubtedly keep a MUCH larger percentage of people interested in your content.

FOLLOW A STYLE GUIDE

A Style Guide is your site’s secret weapon. It’s a behind-the-scenes toolkit that keeps the online image of your site and all sites within your brand consistent. It keeps you unique, and organized everything from font type and size to photo size and number of characters in blocks of copy. You want your site to be recognizable, exclusive and engaging. Like with most things, consistency is key.

At the end of the day, content comes in many forms – not just written articles. When designing your website, it’s essentially up to you to ensure that you’re putting your very best efforts forward to showcase who you are, and what you do. If you make it a priority to create quality content, you’ll most certainly find yourself getting quality leads.