If you’re running an online business right now – creating high-quality website content has to be one of your topmost marketing priorities. That’s because content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads.
However, as marketers and content creators, it doesn’t take long to realize that the digital content world has become impossibly saturated in just the last few years. Content regularly flows out of all kinds of communication and social channels, always trying to be the next best thing or vying for a sliver of your attention.
Think about it this way. How many times do you use a digital device in a single day?
Multiply that by 4.66 billion – the number of active internet users worldwide as of January 2021. That is the reach of the Internet, and tapping into even a small percentage of it could drastically change the way your business influences people.
But for that to happen, you must first learn how to create valuable website content successfully.
Table of Contents
But, Why Does Website Content Matters?
According to HubSpot, 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing as of 2020.
So, the problem arises when we come to making a difference in such a content-saturated online space.
How can you create content that stands out?
For starters, you must know what to focus on. Many businesses mistake the under-prioritizing website content, not realizing that it can lead to higher conversion rates than any other form of media channel.
As marketers, you might’ve heard of SEO (search engine optimization). Even if you haven’t, don’t worry! We’ll explore this in detail later.
But for now, what you need to know is SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media!
And there’s no better place for you to integrate SEO strategies than blog posts and articles.
In other words, your website is and should be a key pillar of your brand – one of the core ingredients – proudly representing your business and making your online presence heard. It’s how customers want to reach you and get to know you, and it’s how your brand can build its reputation in the marketplace.
But for a website to make a real impact in the industry, you need high-value web content – blog posts, articles, guides, videos, infomercials, or illustrations – that will sell.
And that’s why we’re here today.
From start to finish, we will explain how you can create amazing web content for your brand, leave your competitors in the dust, and gain outstanding success in the digital market.
Creating Website Content That Sells: Top 4 Strategies
When it comes to website content, we want to avoid high bounce rates and low conversions while also increasing our traffic and backlinks. Right?
But all everyone talks about is creating content marketing plans, conducting market research on target audiences, and using all-too-common content optimization tools.
Want to know what we think?
Boring.
There’s more to creating web content, and we’re here to reveal all the secrets.
We will talk about the old tried-and-true too, but first, here are four crucial strategies that could help you more. These could completely change the way you create and develop content for your audience.
1. The Magic of UX Copywriting
Let’s talk about UX (user-experience) copywriting for a second.
UX copywriting is different from regular content writing. Instead of focusing on what your brand wants to do, it instead prioritizes the customers – which will also tie into our second strategy.
But first, what is UX copywriting?
Well, it’s also known as user-experience copywriting, and it’s the act of writing and structuring content in a way that speaks to readers on a deeper level. The purpose is to push people towards intuitively achieving a goal.
And it can make all the difference.
The strategy is to focus on the needs of people, appealing to their sense of reason to persuade them to do something particular. You must start with a goal in mind and aim to achieve it by the time your audience finishes reading or watching your content.
Helping Users Apply Information
For example, say your goal is to get people to buy a product. Why should they buy it? What kind of people would want to buy it?
Find those people, and then help guide them through buying it and reaching a decision.
Remember that the best content also gives users the ability to apply the information. It doesn’t degrade people by telling them what to do but instead respects them and assures them that they know how to use the material.
In other words, you must find ways that don’t only benefit you but also (and more so) your potential customers. Talk to them to help them not to sell to them, and the sales will come automatically.
2. Offering 100% Free Value to Your Audience
You may think that it’s counterproductive to suggest offering content for free when we’re talking about content that will sell. But that’s where you’re missing the point.
If you know about Gary Vee, who just recently released his very own NFT collection, you might know that one of his most consistent digital strategies is to give away content for free – and a lot of it too. There’s a brilliant purpose behind this.
The secret to gaining a loyal audience that eventually leads to conversions is building a foundation of trust with them. To receive, you must first learn how to give.
As Gary Vee shows in his blog post, “Why You Shouldn’t Charge For Your Best Work,” the purpose of giving away content for free is to create leverage that eventually allows you to do something for a profit. But for this to work, you have to be very strategic with what you give away and who you’re trying to reach.
Targeting the right audience is only the start of the game because after that, what comes is harder: building a relationship with them based on mutual trust, understanding, and benefit.
As you create regular content that’s free of cost, you’ll build up a consumer base that trusts that you know what you’re talking about. So, when the time comes to invest their money, who better to do it with than your brand?
3. Backlinks Make All the Difference
Backlinks are the number of times another website links to yours, whether that’s a specific blog post or your landing page.
HubSpot research shows that pages with a high number of backlinks tend to have high organic search engine rankings. It’s one of the many metrics that Google uses to measure the value of your page.
Here’s the thing. For your content to perform well, you need many high-authority websites to link to your page and prove that your website is worth a visit.
Now you may think this would be challenging to do, but it’s actually not too hard if you know how to do it.
From Brian Dean at Backlinko, here are some strategies that you can use to increase backlinks:
Use the Skyscraper Technique
Research existing content on a specific subject that has already performed well and then create something better, adding all previous and new information to your post. Then, promote it!
Build Links From Outdated Resources
Find websites that have expired or shut down, then use a backlink tracking tool such as Ahrefs to find web pages that still link to that old URL.
Know where we’re going with this?
Once you find a list of web pages still linking to an expired post or website, reach out to them (preferably via email) and offer them a piece of content you created (updated and better) to link to instead of the outdated one.
Use Content Formats Proven to Generate Links
Certain types of content generally perform better than others, including:
- List Posts
- Quizzes
- “Why” Posts
- “How to” Posts
- Infographics
- Videos
Create valuable pieces of content using the above structures and increase your chances of generating backlinks from other sites!
4. The Power of Originality
Finally, our fourth and final strategy may sound very simple but is often overlooked more than you may realize: creating original content.
If you take your audience for granted, they’ll likely do the same to you. The internet is accessible to all these people at the tip of their hands. So, repetition and lack of creativity aren’t going to get you anywhere.
As we discussed before, the content world is incredibly saturated. The only way you can create a wave is to make something that’s yours. Come up with something new. Surprise your consumers by doing something specifically for them. 80% of people appreciate learning about a company through custom content.
So just remember that originality is key when it comes to creating content that sells.
What Should Be Part of A Website?
We’ve established the importance of focusing on website content to generate leads and talked at length about the various strategies you can deploy to create such content. But how do content strategies vary depending on different pages of a website?
More specifically, how should you structure a website?
Designing A Homepage
In more ways than one, a large number of your audience is likely to end up on your Homepage before anything else.
Your homepage is like the front cover of your brand. It should summarize all the important information you want your viewers to know and lead to a call to action (CTA).
After taking a look at your homepage, your audience should have an idea about:
- The Purpose of Your Business: With one look, people should know about what your business sells. One of the best ways to do this is through strategic pictures rather than long-form articles because 79% of all page guests don’t read but only scan the site.
- Your Products and Services: Most landing pages place their products at the center of attention. Rotating banners of striking pictures of your primary products is a decent method to show your clients what you offer.
- A Clear Call to Action: You should guide your visitors on what to do next in clear words. For example, including a banner that says something like “Buy Now,” “Read More,” “Click Here” will help generate leads.
Remember that in many cases, your homepage is what makes the first impression. So, keep it sleek and simple. Don’t overdo it, but add enough detail to intrigue the viewer to find out more and follow your CTA.
You can use your header to add links to product pages and use the bottom part of the screen for more company-related information, such as a link to the “About Us” page.
Showcasing Your Products & Services
Your products/services page is very crucial because this is essentially where visitors convert to customers. It all depends on how well your story (portrayed through your website) can compel people to invest in you.
It’s a great idea to use all forms of visual aid here to showcase what you have to offer. Add pictures, videos if it applies, and illustrations. Show all sides of your product and convey through visuals how much your viewer needs it.
The product page typically begins with a seductive image – a high-quality product picture that you can easily utilize for other purposes, such as digital advertisements and banners. So, investing in some high-value photography can go a long way!
Following that, you should add a short segment that sums up all benefits of your product (or service) in a few sentences that are easy to read. But if the reader wants to go on, they should find details about product features, specifications, and price information.
Finally, you should have a CTA in clear sight of the user and create a checkout process convenient as possible for customers.
About Us – A Bold Mission Statement
Arguably, your “About Us” section is one of the most important and best pieces of content you can create for your audience, specifically potential long-term customers – given that you do it right.
Customers who want to be loyal to you need to connect to your brand strongly. You can help them do that by creating a bold mission statement, something that shows why you started this business, what you plan to get out of it, and why people should invest in it.
Some of the most common parts of this page include:
- Mission Statement: What would you like to accomplish with your services or products? What makes your team capable of achieving this mission?
- Your Vision: Where do you see your business in the future? What are you aiming towards?
- Company Structure: Does your company operate globally, or are you only limited to a specific region?
- Your Team: Do you build all your products in-house, or do you have industry-leading accomplices that assist you with the creation process?
- Company History: How did it all come about? What inspired you? Here, you can talk about the Eureka moment that made your dream come true.
- Social Responsibility: What does your organization do to support the climate? How does it give back to society? You can specify every one of the positive angles and changes your organization has made – from supporting charity foundations to employee benefits. Show people that your company cares.
How Can Customers Contact You?
Always give more than one way for your customers to contact you in case of any queries, feedback, or concerns they may have. Remember that your customer-business relationship is a two-way street, which means letting people access you through various communication channels.
These days, social media is one of the primary channels through which brands communicate with their customers. It could come in the form of direct messages, comments on posts, or hosting live talks. Instagram is one of the best platforms to do this.
So, your website should have a page with links to all of your socials, along with your email or phone number or whatever another way you’d like them to contact you.
It’s part of customer service to show availability when it comes to solving customer problems. Some clients could have particular issues, which won’t be solved via general troubleshooting on the website. Hence, please ensure that your company has the necessary resources to set up a dedicated customer service channel.
Adding a Chat Box
That aside, another neat way to give customers a way to contact you is by adding a chatbot to your website. While this also works fine via Facebook, some users may want to talk to you while on your site.
Essentially, the purpose of the chatbox is to give people space to ask questions. If their queries aren’t solved through general troubleshooting, your site should then ping you so that someone in your team could step in and help the troubled customer.
Testimonials – What Are Your Clients Saying?
Now, let’s talk about testimonials.
One of the most effective ways to market your business through content is to add your clients to the mix. Show people what they have to say!
The thing is, potential customers are a lot more likely to decide to invest if they see that other people who previously invested in your products had a positive experience. It’s human nature. We see someone else liking something. We’re automatically curious about it and also want to get to like it.
So, testimonial pages should be an integral part of your website.
Show customers real proof, from an independent party, that you keep your commitments and can be trusted. You can either insert client quotes directly onto your testimonial page, or you can incorporate external sources, such as Facebook or Google reviews.
Another great idea is to mention prominent clients so that they can add credibility to your business. The purchasing departments of leading companies have high standards, so this is likely to appeal to them.
And finally, you can always collaborate with famous influencers to review your product(s) or help promote your brand through their socials, which you can then display on your website.
However, the most effective way to present testimonials is through case studies or short interviews of the people involved. Look at GoVisually’s testimonial page, for instance.
Notice how we’ve listed most testimonials as case studies so that our new users can read through them. More importantly, this helps them understand some of the features better and even get answers to the questions they might be wondering about.
And truth be told, that should be the purpose of a testimonial page – to guide your new users better and help them leap into faith.
Careers & Opportunities
Your website isn’t merely a space to show off your products and services. It’s also the perfect opportunity to attract new talent! Depending on how many open job positions your company might have right now, you can make this section a lot of fun.
Instead of adding a list of jobs in the same old, boring way, spice it up by adding a quiz or showing people pictures of your team working together.
Adding such interactive content will make it more interesting to apply for a position at your company, and what’s more, it’s like attracting the right kind of creative people!
So, take potential employees on a fun journey, depict in detail what they’ll get out of working with you, and give them a strong incentive to want to join. And incentive doesn’t mean money. Your incentives can be a promise of creative growth, network building, and career expansion in your website space.
A Website Content Strategy To Increase Sales Creating web content that will convert to direct leads has to do with more than just creativity, value-addition, and visual details. It also requires you to have discipline and set up a series of structures and guidelines for your team to help streamline the content creation process. Besides, you must realize that UX copywriting and link-building strategies won’t work without a solid plan to implement them. So, the question remains: Where do I start? Let’s start by creating a powerful web content marketing plan. As with any other business project, you should begin by defining your goals and giving your marketing team a structure to follow. Our goal is to create web content that sells; material that generates leads and increases conversions. But despite how focused that may sound, it’s still too broad, and we must narrow it down. So, let’s try this as an example instead: We need a set of specific, implementable actions to carry out over the next few months and then assign roles and responsibilities to each marketing team member. Notice the difference? While in the former, we had a general idea of what we want our outcome to be; in the latter, we set our goal as something specific, measurable, realistic, and time-specific for the team to achieve. In technical terms, yes, we’ve set a SMART goal. Once you come up with an implementable plan set for a specific period of time, chances are you’ll rely on this plan to guide you till the end. So, when you craft out a plan for the next few months or years, write down everything you aim to achieve and how you intend to measure this success. We know what we want the results to be, but how do we know we’ve achieved them? Too often, when marketing teams don’t set precise measurements of success, they can get lost or demotivated along the way when they’re not sure if they’ve hit the target or not. So, for example, imagine your goal is higher web traffic. Instead of treating that as your final goal, you can change the approach to: What’s the exact percentage by which we want our web traffic to increase, and how long should it take the team to get it done? As you go through similar goal-building exercises with your team and ask the right questions, you’ll be one step closer to creating stellar web content for your site. Another way to keep your content creation team motivated and consistent throughout the website development process is to create “flag posts” or milestones for them. Flag posts are fixed markers or targets that signify when you accomplish a certain goal or reach a specific position in your process. In other words, these are your small wins, and they should be there to remind you how much you’ve achieved and how far you’ve yet to go. Remember that creating and then maintaining web content that leads to sales is a consistent, trying process. To keep up that constant rhythm and pace, you’ll need flag posts to remind you that you’re on the right path! The first crucial part of the planning process is conducting rigorous research. You must learn about your competitors, analyze their techniques, and thoroughly explore the existing web content related to your field. The research process is the time to learn what you don’t know, read and peruse similar content, and markdown content creation techniques you may want to replicate! It can be incredibly beneficial to know what you’re up against. Not only will it prevent you from creating repetitive material, but it will also give you insight into what potential customers are looking for. In other words, ask yourself what’s currently missing in the market. And how can your brand fill that gap with its products or services? Next is possibly one of the most fun steps of the process! It’s time to innovate, come up with new ideas for valuable content, and brainstorm ways you can reach (and connect with) your target audience. At this point, some businesses might make the mistake of researching general web content tactics and then just blindly following them. Or they observe what their competitors are doing and follow that. So, the idea generation process is of the utmost significance. It means sitting down with your creative team and coming up with ways you can stand out from the industry. It means asking yourself what your brand has to offer consumers that other brands don’t. Talking about HTML and wireframes might not be the easiest thing to do, but it’s certainly necessary. The space in which you publish your web content is in some ways as important as the content itself! In other words, it’s time to create (or revamp) the skeleton of your website. Firstly, remember that content management alone isn’t adequate to create a working website. We also need to design a website structure – the space in which to serve your beautiful web content. Now, this step is likely to take a considerable amount of time – because it includes the generation of all your web page links and the design process of the basic architecture of your website. You must be patient through this as you don’t want to rush anything! Once you’re done with this step, your IT team can then move on to creating a sitemap. What’s a sitemap, you may ask? A sitemap essentially makes it easier for search engines to locate your content, making it an automatic SEO contributor. It’s why this step is so crucial. Once your sitemap has been created, your team can then move on to the final step: creating a wireframe. A wireframe is basically a first impression of the visual portrayal of your website’s user interface without any design elements. Crafting your wireframe should count as a significant milestone! Not only does it serve as a communication tool, but it also offers the first overview of your website to all the stakeholders. Next, we come to the creation of your website content! Remember that our goal is to create content that’s meaningful and profitable. Unless you already have a designated content creation team, it’s important to note that you will need several different skill sets to launch or even maintain a business website successfully. For instance, you’ll need a graphic designer, a few content writers, and most probably a web designer. These are pretty self-explanatory, but what’s important is that you bring together a team that works well together. Remember our end goals and starting vision? We need to make sure that everyone is on the same track. Maintaining a steady stream of content out into the digital world is a tough task, and you can’t afford to lose your vision in the middle of the way. Because here’s the thing. The moment you start drifting away from your brand’s message, you’ll start losing conversions and start seeing higher bounce rates. One of the first strategies we discussed was keeping your audience hooked to your content and helping them develop a sense of trust in your business by making it apparent that you know what you’re talking about. We must remain consistent in that approach to see an increase in conversions because, as mentioned before, building web traffic takes time. It’ll take time for you to get your web content to a place where it begins to profit you immensely and becomes a source of direct revenue for your business. But to get there, you must stick to the game! Search engine optimization or SEO is over-emphasized in the marketing world, but that might be for a good reason. Here’s the deal. Imagine you Google something specific, and more than a million search results show up in a matter of milliseconds. Which links are you likely to click on first? We’re guessing that it would be the ones at the top of your search results. The point is, to increase the reach of your content, it must appear on top of search engine results. And search engine optimization is the process by which you can help do this. SEO is the process by which you can improve the amount of web traffic you get through search engines – by using clever techniques to rank higher. For instance, you can use SEO tools like Ahrefs for keyword research. However, it’s important to keep in mind that you don’t compromise your text’s integrity in trying to integrate SEO into your material. In fact, it should be done so smoothly that your readers don’t even realize that you’ve used SEO-friendly keywords! That aside, here are some popular SEO techniques you can utilize in your web content: Finally, you may want to note that SEO isn’t just limited to written content or articles! Google also takes file names of your images into account. So, what does this mean? Well, rather than using random names (such as “Image.jpg”) while uploading visuals to your web content, all you need to do is give your files meaningful names – with SEO-friendly keywords. In turn, this will increase the relevance of your material in the digital space of your industry. Another thing you can do is to fill in the metadata while uploading images to a web page, for example, captions, alt text, and descriptions. As you make these small shifts in how you upload digital content, it’ll automatically help direct search engines to your website and increase traffic. The most overlooked part of content marketing is scannable content. Scannable web content makes it easy for users to learn about your brand without getting distracted by a flashing banner ad or a pretty illustration. In other words, we reiterate the need to keep it simple! Don’t add too many fancy words or create blog posts or videos that could throw off potential customers. Instead, build content that’s scannable or that can be perused through in a matter of a few moments. Remember that your viewers’ time is as precious as yours, if not more! So, it would be smart to respect that and not take it for granted. Moreover, CTAs or call-to-actions are more likely to work if displayed in plain sight and don’t take a lot of effort to carry out. Thus, your aim should be to provide your viewers with material that they can skim through while also understanding what your brand is about – and therefore, to create a lasting impression that eventually brings them back and converts into sales. On to the most important part of content creation – reviewing and approval process. You can either opt for traditional reviewing methods like scrolling through countless emails and playing ping-pong. Or you can choose to fasten your content creation workflow with online proofing software. An online proofing software essentially allows you to: And believe me, these benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many proven benefits of online proofing. So, if you want to speed up your content creation process, best start today with the #1 proofing tool. Let’s end by remembering that the secret to creating high-quality content is giving high value to your customers and establishing a strong workflow that includes an even stronger review process. The more you think about your content in terms of who you’re creating it for, the more they will think about you in terms of loyalty and investment. Create true value, connect to people, and you’ll soon find that conversions are the least of your worries. Do share your thoughts with us – we’d love to hear if our piece helped you create better content.Defining Your End Goals
How Will You Measure Your Success?
Setting Flag Posts (Milestones)
Planning Your Web Content
1. The Research Process
2. Idea Generation & Brainstorming
3. Sitemap and Wireframe Creation
Creating Content: Teamwork Builds the Dreamwork
Hiring Creatives & Assigning Roles
Integrating Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO in Visual Data
Building Scannable Content
Reviewing the Website Content before Publishing
Final Word
