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Content is King
Content is King

What?

 Content is King! Your website MUST have good and interesting content for it to be listed and ranked on the search engines and to get new and repeat visitors.


What do you mean?

 A large number of websites can best be described as "brochure ware" - the site is a copy of the brochure or leaflet used for advertising. While this is fine for a brochure, it is not good for a website. People visit websites for information, not just statistics, and they are much more likely to buy from you if your site explains your product or service and fills the gaps in their knowledge. This conveys the "they know their stuff" impression and inspires confidence. People who are interested in a product described in a brochure usually follow-up with a call to the company to get their questions answered. Good content on a website eliminates the need for this, allowing people to decide much faster.


But my brochure tells them everything about my product

 Sure, but it may not convince them that they need your product. If your website, for instance, was for security products then just describing the features is not enough. If you gave them some statistics on the number of break-ins per year, the cost of repair, the increase in insurance premiums (or decrease, if they fitted adequate security devices) you would be increasing the probability of their deciding to fit a security system - and of a sale. Another instance: if you are selling herbal supplements, just listing them and proclaiming your low prices may not be enough. But if you described your latest product and told them that it created enormous relief for back sufferers - backing this up with testimonials - you would encourage them to try your product and would also be targeting those people who suffered from back problems. Taking it a stage further, a table listing your products by condition (backache, migraine, allergy etc.,) would make it easier for people to determine what they needed and could also result in their purchasing other herbal products which they had not known would benefit them.


So I should put all my information beside each product?

 No! This would create a very long page and too much to read, and make it difficult to find other items. A better idea would be a short description of the product, highlighting its features, followed by a more... link to a page of detailed information, preferably in a single window so that the browser could get back to the main page easily. This would allow interested parties to follow-up the information and allow others to see the other items on the page without a lot of scrolling. You should also your content keyword-rich.


What do you mean - "keyword-rich"?

 That means that certain words should be repeated at least three times on each page, and that these words should be set as keywords in the META tags of your page - see our guide on Promotion for a description of Meta tags. These tags will be examined by the search engine robots when they visit your site, and will be used to guide surfers to your site when they do a search on those words. The repetition of the keywords gives weight to them and to the informative quality of your website page. The security site in the example above could, for instance, have the word "alarm" as a keyword and use this several times in the text.


What about pictures of my product - don't those matter?

 Yes, they do, but mainly to the humans viewing your site. The crawlers or robots can only "see" text. To avoid unnecessary captioning of pictures, web designers use ALT and TITLE tags with graphics - these cause a box with a description to appear when you place the cursor (pointer) over the picture. Robots can, and do, pick up these descriptions. These tags are also useful for people with visual problems who use text-to-speech (or braille) converters, and will allow them to "see" products which would otherwise have been invisible.


You said the site should also be interesting. Why?

 Several reasons. Don't underestimate the value of referrals - people who find interesting information on a website will pass it on - to friends, colleagues and relations - by word of mouth and e-mail. This is called viral marketing, and is a powerful form of advertising. Interesting content also encourages repeat visitors, and each visit is a potential sale. But, to encourage people to come back, the site content must be refreshed regularly with new content. You wouldn't read even the most interesting book more than twice running, would you? Regular fresh content will encourage people to keep coming back to see what's new. You can help them find it by using a "New! Just Arrived" icon on new items.


What else can I do to improve my content?

 Try and think of what you would want a site to show you so that you wouldn't have to phone or e-mail the company. Prices. Discounts. Special Offers. Hours of opening - if you have a bricks-and-mortar outlet as well, with telephone numbers and address. Delivery charges and time to deliver. Returns policy and information. Privacy policy. Credit card arrangements. Terms and Conditions - but keep these brief or no-one will read them. An FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page which is updated regularly with new questions, and is organised well. A search facility if you have a large site or a large number of products.

Remember, the more information you can give customers, the more confident they will feel about buying from you.


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