Great Websites have Great Content Plans

The best thing you can do for your business website is to spend time focusing on the page content. Search engines will love it. Your sales team will love it. Potential customers will really love it.

But one of the hardest things to come up with is what to write about. Especially when you are busy and you already have a long to-do list. To help, you need a Website Content Plan. We have some tips to get you started.

What website content do you need?

There are a few key pages you will need for your site. They are often called “Cornerstone” or “Pillar” pages. These key pages will become a permanent part of your website. They should fully represent the scope of your business. They should also be the best web pages you can produce. Performance of the pages will be key to the performance of your website. It is important to track analytics on theses pages and work to improve your numbers. Here is a list of key pages:

Home Page

Your homepage is usually the most visited page on your website. Because of this, it is key that your homepage contain you most important information. Your core service offerings should take center stage and take most of the real estate. For example, don’t add a big photo slider that takes up most of the page. If only to fill it up with stock photos that tell nothing about what you have to offer. The focus of your homepage should be the focus of your business.

About Us Page

Website visitors do use the About Us page. The key thing when trying to write an About Us page is to sound natural. This is not where you should use your best sales pitch or your marketing buzz words. The About Us page is where you give visitors a peak into the attitude and personality of your company. It does not have to be just text, be creative. Photos, videos all can help tell your story. Here are some tips for your About Us page.

Contact Us Page

For many websites, the Contact Us page is their first conversion page. This is the place where you want website visitors to complete a task and convert from a visitor to a lead. The path to complete that task needs to be as obvious and easy to find as possible. One common mistake is trying to get too much information on the first try. Many studies have highlighted the problems of website forms that are too long. Get the basic contact info, then you can start a conversation and get the rest of the information you need. I myself get scared off a website that requires a long form filled out before I can get what I want.

Products/Services
At a minimum, work towards have one page per product or service. Depending on the length of your sales cycle, you may need more. If customers can complete the sale on your site, one page may be plenty. Does a prospect requires several weeks to finalize a sale iwith your business? Your website will need content that addresses the prospect at all points in the sales cycle. No way one page will be enough. Get a good landing page built first. Then work on adding more content on a regular schedule.

Creating Evergreen Content

The goal will be to create a good base of content on your site that will help close your sales. The longer your sales cycle, the more information you will need to provide. Your website will help to teach potential customers how your product/service solves problems. The purpose of Evergreen Content is to create pages with staying-power. As you add each piece, it becomes a permanent asset to your website. Content that can draw traffic and help create conversions.

Characteristics of Evergreen Content include:

Educational or Reference Material – not a sales piece directly. But a learning opportunity.
Never goes out of date or changes rarely.
More Detailed, At Least 1500 words.
Industry Related – Not specific to your company, but to the problem they are trying to solve.
Search engines are indexing it and returning it in search results.

Why is Evergreen Content Important?

Earn links instead of build them – When you have content that is useful, you won’t have to worry about building links. Good content will be worthy on its on.
Generate Traffic – Search engines and people love Evergreen content. What will naturally follow is more traffic to your website.
Brand Identity – If your website ranks in search for information on your industry. And users share your evergreen pieces. Your online brand will be linked with industry keywords. Which not only brings more traffic, but better targeted traffic.

Examples of Evergreen Content you can create:

Check your sales and marketing folders. You may have some of these items created already. They only need to be posted to the website. Content can include any of the following:

Case Studies
How-to-Articles
Industry Trends or Data Reports
User or Product Tips
Checklists – for any part of the buying/implementing/maintenance of what you sell
Infographics
Videos – again look at the entire buying cycle and make sure each stage has content.

Remember one of the keys to high-performing content is to get it shared by many. Resist the temptation to put all your content behind a firewall. Meaning don’t make users have to sign-up for everything. Stuff is easier to share if they can just grab it off the site.

Starting Your Website Content Plan

#1 Review Last Year’s Numbers

Before you start writing, take a few minutes and review what you wrote last year. Dig into your Google Analytics. See which webpages and blog posts generated the most traffic. Keep the pages that performed well and use their format to help plan for next year. Pay special attention to content that generates its own traffic.

#2 Focus on Priority Themes

Organize your content by themes. Themes can be markets you serve, product categories, services you provide. Are any themes less covered than others? Does it make sense to give this theme more real estate on your website? If so, add it to your to-do list. Having content with the same theme also makes it easier to link pages. This is good for your SEO.

#3 Write with a Business Strategy behind it

Review your business goals. Make a list of new stuff happening. For example, product launches, new service offerings, events your are hosting or marketing campaigns planned for this year. Make a list of what information needs to go on the website. Take that list and fill in your Content Calendar.

#4 Improve what’s already out there

Every year plan to review content already posted on your website. Start with obvious things like broken links or out-of-date info. Now that your pages have been out there for awhile, you can see them with fresh eyes. Some of your old stuff may need updates or additions. Longer form content performs well in search. Maybe you have several short pages that could be combined to create one really great page?Here are some ideas on how to get a full list of pages to help organize your review.