When creating online content for your business website, it’s tempting to stuff a bunch of keywords, get the help of someone with blackhat SEO knowledge promising to get you to the top of the rankings in a few days and call it a day.
The problem with this fast approach is that it rarely works well for the long term. Chances are that you will end up burning out quikcly once Google’s algorithms catch up with your attempts.
If you want to build long-term success with your online content, you need to focus on your branding and high quality.
Creating Quality Online Content
While SEO is important to your success, and it can draw traffic — and customers — to your website, it’s not the only thing that matters. In fact, Google has become so sophisticated that you can end up with a penalty if you aren’t careful. Rather than fretting about your exact placement in the search engine rankings, consider the quality of your online content.
Jumping too fast on the blackhat bandwagon can be recovered from, but it’s easier to avoid those penalities in the first place. Quality online content can help with that.
Here are some ideas for making sure that you create online content that is of high quality:
- Make it useful: Be sure that your visitors gain value out of your content. Some of the most useful content includes how-to articles and tutorials, as well as detailed reviews.
- Vary the content: Consider using video and audio in addition to written articles. A video review of a product, complete with a demonstration of how it works can be a great addition to your site. It’s useful and engaging.
- Offer relevance: You online content should be relevant to your audience. When writing product descriptions, include information and details that allow the reader to see how it applies to him or her, and how it can improve life.
- Pay attention to grammar and usage: Nothing turns readers off like a lack of professionalism. Add professionalism to your website by checking and grammar and usage. You don’t have to be formal with your online content, but it should at least be relatively easy to read and free of serious composition mistakes.
- Be personable: Don’t forget to let your personality show through. Understand your audience and relate to its members. That way, you will be more likely to connect with visitors to your business website — and convince them to stay.
You don’t need to provide perfect online content. However, it should be something that connects with your readers and helps them figure out how to move forward with their lives. Refresh your content regularly (it doesn’t have to be every day, but you should add content predictably), and make it a point to share on social media so that you can get more eyes on your content.
When you have quality online content and a good strategy for sharing it, you’ll see increased traffic to your business website — and increase your conversion rate.
