“Content is the king.” Everyone related to the digital landscape has heard this golden rule at least a few times. But how critical website content actually is?
- According to research by SEMRush, more than 91% of businesses use content marketing.
- Another report by Zazzle suggests that 96% of digital marketers find content marketing effective for their companies.
- As per a report by DemandMetric, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates almost 3x more leads.
Now that you’ve got an idea about why content is called the king, the next question is, “How do you create great content for your website?” Here are 10 excellent tips that can help-
1. Know the Purpose of Content
The first step to work on a content marketing strategy is to understand why you are writing the content. For instance, the content can help sell more products or attract new customers. If done right, it can help you improve both the quantity and quality of your website traffic. Most importantly, it can help you convert better. Start with knowing the end goal, and it will be easier for you to write content that could help you achieve that objective.
When defining the purpose of your content, be specific. Yes, we all want more sales but dive deeper into the purpose of content for each section. For instance, getting more salaried individuals between the age of 25-30 living in tier 1 cities of India to subscribe to your newsletters could be the primary purpose of your home page content.
2. Know Your Audience
Once you know the objective of your content strategy, the next step is to understand your target audience. Understand their level of expertise, age group, location, interests, etc., so that the content you write fulfils their expectations. Also, give special attention to what they’d like to know about you, your products or services. While you should focus on the demographics, don’t forget the psychographics of your audience.
3. Analyse Your Competitors
To write great content, you should also have a detailed understanding of your competitors and the type of content they produce. Remember that you are competing with possibly hundreds or even thousands of websites on the internet. The goal of your content strategy is to offer something better than what others are offering. Analyzing competitor content is a great place to begin.
4. Conduct a Website Audit
Now that you know your content goal, target audience, and competitors, it is time to conduct a website audit. The purpose of this audit is to analyze the content you already have on your website and find out the strengths and weaknesses. Determine the type of content that people like on your website and see if content pieces need to be re-written or updated. Content gap analysis with your competitors on certain pages can help you identify what information you can include making your content better.
5. Use the Inverted Pyramid Model
While this writing style is mostly used in newspapers, it has been found to be very effective for the web audience whose attention span is consistently falling. In this model, you give away the most important part of the content at the beginning. You then gradually move to more specifics in the following paragraphs and end the content with tangential details.
6. Active Voice Reads Better
It is always better to use active voice when writing content as it reads better and is more user-friendly. Sentences in active voice are also generally more engaging. While it is completely alright to use passive voice at places, try to keep it to a minimum. In most cases, sentences written in passive voice can be changed to active.
7. Write Short and Simple Sentences
Internet users want to reach the information they need as quickly as possible. They don’t have a lot of time to read through long and complex sentences. So, the general rule of thumb is to use short and simple sentences. It is generally recommended that a sentence should not have more than 25-30 words.
8. Format Creatively
You only have a few milliseconds to grab the attention of a website visitor. As most readers simply scan web pages, you need to ensure that the key points of your content stand out. Formating is a smart way to attract the attention of visitors. You can use bold, italics, and bullets to highlight important points. You can also experiment with font size and style to help the readers.
9. Find Out the Best Keywords
Your content also plays a very important role in SEO. Before you start writing any piece of content, ensure that you perform thorough keyword research. Google also offers a free keyword tool to help you find the best keywords related to your industry, products, or services. Use long-tail keywords as they are closer to the queries people actually enter when using a search engine.
10. Monitor and Improve
You also need to regularly monitor and evaluate all your content. Create a list of content most liked, viewed, and shared by the visitors. This will help you understand the type of content you should focus upon the next time you write content. You can also regularly check the comments section of your blog posts to find out the things the readers like and dislike.
Start Creating Great Content Today
With hundreds and thousands of businesses competing to attract customer attention on the internet, there is no option but to provide something useful and unique to your audience in every way possible. Website content provides you with this opportunity to stand apart from the crowd.
Use these tips to create an effective content strategy or look for a reliable digital marketing company to help you get the best results.
