Content, A Key Piece of the Puzzle
You know you need a website; that's a given in any business today.
However, gone are the days of static, brochure-like websites. And, gone are the days of adding a "blog" to your website and calling it good.
Additionally, many of us are great at creating content for social media (also important), but neglect to create ongoing content for our websites (this is a mistake).
Blogs, Articles, Videos and Downloads can be important for your website for a few key reasons:
Provide Value and Establish Authority
When you create quality content for your website that speaks to the service or product that you provide, it establishes you as an authority in your space. This establishes trust with your website audience and prospective clients or customers.
Create a Relationship
If you're just using your website to "sell," you risk alienating your potential customers. If you first, provide value through your content, you start to establish a relationship with your prospects. It gives them a chance to get to know you better and begin to trust you before they sign up for your product or service.
Give Your Audience a Reason to Come Back to Your Website
If you never have any new content or information on your website, then people don't have a reason to come back! Give them a reason to keep engaging with you by providing valuable, relevant information on an ongoing basis.
Search Engine Optimization
Google loves content. When you have a website that's densely populated with content that is relevant to your industry, you have a better chance at getting found through the search engines.
It's "Property You Own"
Social Media is an amazing way to reach your audience and a channel every business should use. But, at the same time, the social platforms can change the rules in the blink of an eye. Your website should be a key component to your brand and business. It's a place that you own, where you control the rules and the experience for your audience.
You Have SO...Much...To Do! So, How Do You Make Time for Website Content?
It doesn't have to be so overwhelming!
If you haven't done so already, create an audience persona.
Then, come up with one topic that you know your audience cares a lot about. Think about 3-5 articles you could write about that topic that would be highly useful and relevant. If you don't like writing but like to make videos, great! Make a video, embed it on your website and provide a short paragraph about what's in the video.
You can then use these individual pieces to promote on your social media, in your e-newsletter and anywhere else you communicate with your audience.Use these pieces of content everywhere. Pull out excerpts for status updates or as quotes to go with images on your Instagram. Use the same content to deliver an Instagram Story.
You could also use Facebook or Google ads to begin driving traffic to this content to bring in prospective clients to your website.
Once you've shared this content far and wide, you can come up with a new topic to write 3-5 articles on, and so on. Eventually, your website will be filled up with a nice library of rich, relevant, value-filled content!
Why You Need to Do More Than Just Have a Blog Section
A "blog" section can be a great place to start, but it just doesn't do your content justice. When you hide your content in this section, your audience can easily overlook it. You've spent time crafting your articles, videos and other content assets. Don't let it go to waste!
Here are a few great ways to group and arrange content on your website.
Showcase Content On Your Homepage
Group "like-content" on your homepage, and in sections. Let's say you are a business coach. Your homepage could include sections of content that include your articles, videos and downloads. So, perhaps one section would be all about marketing and could include your "Facebook Ads Hack" Download, an article about content marketing, and a video where you share three tips for offline marketing strategies. You could do the same type of thing for "working with employees," and so on.
Create Content Collections
Group "like-content" all on one main page where your audience can find all of the info you have on a particular topic.
You've now assembled a dense, highly relevant landing page of information for your audience, a content collection (It's a lot like the BSW bundles you see on this website.). You can link to these in-depth guides from your homepage to highlight them, place links to them in your menu, and share the full guide on your social channels, e-newsletter and more. Run ads to them and include a form on the page where prospects can sign up for your services.
When your content starts as an article or video on your website, it adds to a library that you can pull from again and again for future social media posts, e-news content, or maybe even a full e-book someday.