Creating Quality Content

There has been much hype recently about content marketing and how content is king for websites. Whilst there is some truth in this, there are a number of points to consider and think about when undertaking content marketing for your website. For example, it’s not as simple as just writing out thousands of words with constant repetition of your target keyword/s. Google’s algorithm has evolved past this now and these ‘old school’ techniques that may have once worked, are now seen as spammy.

When looking at writing and creating quality content there are some important points to think about. As with most things related to websites and e-commerce, it all starts with the end user – your customer, client or website visitor. So, in beginning to write your article, blog or website content, always consider the following options:

• Who is your content for?

Tailor your content so it is written and coherent to your target audience. Use words and phrases that your reader will understand, appreciate and connect with.

• Why is it being written?

What is your objective in spending time creating this content? From experience, the best content is written when it adds value to the end user. This can be from explaining in detail about your product or service or, like this article, it offers advice and guidance on a particular subject matter. By adding value to the end user, it may elicit the following responses:

Social Sharing
Repeat Website Visits
Longer Time Spent on Site

• Emotional Responses

Aside from adding value to your end user, which should be your primary objective, getting an emotional response from your website’s visitors should also be the main objective. Emotional responses typically result in website visitors making purchases and enquiries. Your content is essentially storytelling and if you can make the end user connect with it on an emotional level, you are much more likely to convert them into paying customers.

• Authenticity

Be an expert in your field and offer good advice, hints, and tips in your speciality. This will create trust, engagement and ultimately, it starts the awareness stage in your marketing funnel.

• User Experience

Content marketing has its roots firmly in user experience (UX) as by adding value to the end user, you are creating and exchanging information between people. By offering good quality information, that is written well and crucially, is laid out well, this will all contribute to improved UX. UX in recent times has become something of a ranking factor in major search engines algorithms, so this has benefits to your SEO as well.

• SEO

irstly content should always be created with the end user in mind, this is basic content marketing rule 101. However, that being said, it does and can have a positive effect on your organic ranking, for a number of reasons. This is because major search engines like Google and Bing value good quality websites that add value, offer good user experience and are authentic with their website content. So, by having excellent content, as mentioned in this article already, it will, almost by default help to increase your ranking in the SERP.

• Is it relevant?

Content needs to be relevant to your overall subject matter. For example, we are a marketing agency, so we would not write or create content on this site that talks in detail about cooking, as it is not relevant to our audience and does not meet readers’ needs and desires.

• Consistency

As with most things in life, consistency really is key and content marketing is the same. Creating content for your website should form part of your wider overall digital marketing strategy. By putting out good, high-quality articles and content on your website on a regular basis you are making your website value visitors and at the same time encouraging Google and other major search engines to keep coming back to crawl it.

• Make it shareable?

As part of your social media strategy, content marketing should feature prominently in it. One of the main reasons for this is that good content adds value and your website visitors will appreciate this and will look to share it with colleagues, friends, and family. As mentioned early in this article, this social sharing and social ‘proofing’ will also really help with your search engine optimisation. Social media signals are known to influence your organic ranking, so getting it shared by your website visitors is crucial.

From the points above you can begin to see that there are a number of important factors to consider with content marketing and what is mentioned above is not exhaustive, there are and will be more points that need considering, but these suggestions are an excellent starting point.

Content marketing covers a number of processes in the marketing mix from awareness right through to the final sale. It is worth investing time and effort in it, as in the long term when you achieve some of the points mentioned in this article, it can really help you to meet your online goals and objectives.

If you have found this article valuable or have any ideas, thoughts or suggestions then please comment in boxes below.

PS: In one of our more recent news articles we invited special guest Mark Waldron from MOVE on to our podcast and vlog to talk about Relationship Marketing. This is a great episode and correlates well with creating emotional responses within marketing in general. To watch, listen or download this episode please click here.