(Relevant) Content is King

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
We've developed over 500 web sites in the last eight years, for all kinds of businesses and organizations.  Big companies, little companies, florists, lawyers, politicians, tattoo parlors, retailers... you name it - a real eclectic mix.  There's a real common thread between them - they all think they can write.

Some of them are right - they really CAN write.

And some of them really CANNOT.

They also have another thing in common - each client has spent a lot of time with us on the design.   We'll go over usability, navigation, colors, pictures, 'calls to action' buttons, you name it.  They get that.

But when it comes to adding content to the design, a typical response is:  "My friend, I've been writing since elementary school.   I'll write it."  Or, "we'll just throw in a few bullet points and be done with it.  Or my favorite:  "we'll just 'borrow ideas' from another site"  (you guessed it - that was a politician.  Not an original bone in their creative minds).

Get this - relevant content on your site is king.  Don't relegate it to court jester status.

What exactly is relevant content?

Your web site’s content is basically all the “stuff” on the site. All the words,  images and audio.  Everything that your viewers see, read, hear and experience is content and it’s extremely important to your site.

Good content rules.

The whole idea of the web is to make lots of information easily accessible to the world. The best way to make it work for you, is to fill your website with great content. The more relevant and interesting your web site’s content is to your target audience, the more it will resonate with them as potential customers.

To Google... and Beyond!

The better and original the content is, the better it will do with search engines, too. Search engines use special formulas called algorithms to comb through a web site's content, looking for pages that match the search criteria. The more clear and relevant a pages’ content is to that search phrase, the higher up in the search engines’ results it should appear. And that’s money in the bank for you.  As your web site climbs higher on a search results page, the chances of it being clicked increase exponentially.

Here are a few guidelines to use when creating content for your site:

1. The information you post on your site needs to be useful, educational, informative, valuable or just plain entertaining.
2. Update your content regularly to gain an edge on your competition.
3. Know your target audience and what they want to read, hear, see or know.
4. If content is king, spelling and grammar are his crown and robe (ooh, that's a good one!).
5. Paragraphs and sentences need to be brief. Blocks of text are intimidating to the reader.
6. Use lists, bullets and numbers (like these!) to better outline text; just don't use it exclusively!
7. Make sure all of the content is relevant to your company’s identity.

This list should help you weed out the useless and inappropriate info that is clogging your site and holding it back from reaching its full potential. Because with too much of the wrong information, search engines will never find your site and customers will never want to visit it.

Just remember, when it comes to your web site – lots of content is great, but relevant always rules.  With an iron fist.

Until next week,

-Dave Borland