The catch with web-site content is that is must be fresh and original to be most effective. If it’s not, the
content can do more harm than good. As you’ve already seen, content is the one element that can keep
customers coming back to your site time and again. When customers return often, your site ranking
improves, because the traffic registers the site with search crawlers as a valid and in-demand site.
When your content stinks, though, your site is headed in the opposite direction. If you have content
on your site that’s not professional, the search engine crawler will register this, and your ranking may
drop lower and lower and you could possibly be delisted altogether.
How do you know if your content stinks or not? It’s mostly a game of finding the right combination
of content types and consistent updates. But before you can even get to determining the right type of
content, you need to create a content strategy.
Your content strategy is the plan by which you’ll infuse your site with the right types of content at the
right times. It starts with determining how to reach your target audience. By now your target audience
should be engraved on your forehead, but how you reach that audience is something entirely
different. If your audience is teens, the language and method with which you’ll reach them will be
different than if your audience is senior adults or stay-at-home moms, or even full-time professionals.
One more consideration as you’re planning your content strategy: what do you do that’s different
from your competition? You should already have a good idea of what your competition does, and
how it seems to work for them. But what can you do differently? What sets you apart from all of
the other web sites out there that come up when a user searches for widgets?
content can do more harm than good. As you’ve already seen, content is the one element that can keep
customers coming back to your site time and again. When customers return often, your site ranking
improves, because the traffic registers the site with search crawlers as a valid and in-demand site.
When your content stinks, though, your site is headed in the opposite direction. If you have content
on your site that’s not professional, the search engine crawler will register this, and your ranking may
drop lower and lower and you could possibly be delisted altogether.
How do you know if your content stinks or not? It’s mostly a game of finding the right combination
of content types and consistent updates. But before you can even get to determining the right type of
content, you need to create a content strategy.
Your content strategy is the plan by which you’ll infuse your site with the right types of content at the
right times. It starts with determining how to reach your target audience. By now your target audience
should be engraved on your forehead, but how you reach that audience is something entirely
different. If your audience is teens, the language and method with which you’ll reach them will be
different than if your audience is senior adults or stay-at-home moms, or even full-time professionals.
One more consideration as you’re planning your content strategy: what do you do that’s different
from your competition? You should already have a good idea of what your competition does, and
how it seems to work for them. But what can you do differently? What sets you apart from all of
the other web sites out there that come up when a user searches for widgets?