Why Content Is The Most Important Part Of Your Website
You probably hear a lot about how content is one of the best things to invest in for your business. It’s all about content creation and content marketing. If you can’t create high quality content then you may as well just give up now.
Blog posts, videos and infographics are the vehicle for your message, and your website pages are where your customers go to find out this message.
So let’s have a look at some of the reasons why creating this content is a good idea for your business.
High Quality Content Educates Your Customers
Website content is important for telling potential customers what exactly it is that you do. There’s no point in having someone come to your website if it doesn’t give them any information, and therefore no reason to stay on your site.
Your Home and About pages are going to be the first places a customer goes to find out about you, so these pages need to be well-written, informative, and interesting enough to keep them reading and make them want to find out more.
All forms of content give you different ways to educate your customers about your business and your products.
Blog posts can inform them about the ins and outs of your industry, or whatever is going on behind-the-scenes in your business, as well as answer customer’s questions and show you as an expert in you field.
Videos are a great way to get a little bit more personal with your customers and show off your own personality.
Infographics are a great way to use visuals to engage with your readers and get them interested in your message.
Educating your readers through high quality content builds trust between you both and promotes loyalty. They’re much more likely to come back to your website if you’ve educated them and given them value.
High Quality Content Also Educates Search Engines
And search engines are what bring people to your site. If they don’t know what your website is about then they won’t know what to rank you for.
Good quality content is what tells the search engine what your website, and your business, do, so that you can rank for relevant keywords, and be found by people searching those keywords.
The more you update your content, with new blog posts or videos, the more often search engines like Google will crawl and index your site. Fresh content is key when it comes to ranking for the words and phrases that people are searching for. It’s likely that a lot of your content will be of a similar theme (like most of my blog posts relate to writing or content creation in some way), so the more content you have, the more you increase your chances of ranking for relevant keywords.
Always keep in mind, of course, that it’s quality over quantity when it comes to content. Don’t stuff your blog posts with keywords just for the sake of it. A high quality and relevant blog post once a week is much better for your search engine rankings than crap daily posts that are just an excuse to put in a keyword or phrase.
High Quality Content Builds Trust Through Branding
Education isn’t the only way to build trust and loyalty between your business and your customers. Your brand also promotes this, and content is an important factor in the branding of your business.
Branding is important for a few reasons:
Recognition - When done well, branding can mean that people recognise you from certain colours or phrases (think McDonald’s yellow arches and ‘I’m lovin it’ slogan).
Referrals - It’s much easier for someone to refer you to someone else if you have a recognisable brand that’s easy to talk about.
Emotional Connections - Your brand’s message works a lot better if you can connect to your customers emotionally (Always’ #LikeAGirl campaign works so well because it appeals to a sense of anger at how the phrase is used, as well as a sense of pride at how they want to change it).
One of the best ways to get your brand message across is through using a consistent tone of voice in your content. This makes sure that you're recognisable and that you stand out. A tone of voice that exclusively belongs to your business means you stand out against your competitors.
It also makes you seem more personal and less like a robotic voice behind a computer. It gives you a personality and makes you seem more human, which will help to build a connection with your reader much more than if your content was generic and nothing to do with your brand.
What Makes Content ‘High Quality’?
I’ve talked about ‘high quality content’ for ages now, so I better give a quick rundown of what that actually means before we finish.
Unfortunately, there’s no one true definition of high quality content. It can be annoyingly subjective depending on your industry and your niche. But there are plenty of little things you can do to give yourself the best possible chance at reaching it:
Be Relevant: Know what your customers are looking for and give it to them. It just takes some research into keywords and asking your customers a few questions to find out.
Be Grammatically Correct: There’s nothing worse than trying to slog through a piece of content that’s full of spelling and grammatical mistakes. In a world where most word processors come with a spell-checker, and software like Grammarly checks everything for you for free, there’s just no excuse for it.
Format Properly: Use headings and white space properly. Good quality content is aesthetically pleasing and easy to skim through (because that’s how people will decide if your content is worth reading).
Be Original: Originality is what keeps people interested. No one will read your content if it’s something they’ve read a hundred times before. Come at topics from a new angle, or argue a point that hasn’t been argued before.
Make It Applicable: Make sure that your content is showing your readers how to apply what you’re telling them to do. There’s no point in only giving half a piece of advice and then stopping before you get to the helpful bit.
Prove It: Use statistics and studies to prove the points you’re making rather than just throwing statements out there. And make sure the statistics are accurate. Link back to the original study as best as possible to reduce any risk to your reputation.
Good content is what sets your website apart from all of the others.
It gets your message across to your customers and persuades them that your product is what they need.
In the realm of business, content is, indeed, king.