Content Strategy to Get Better Results for Your Website

Content is not just written but also auditory and visual. Website content  refer to text in the web pages, letters to the customers, blog posts, posts to social networking, interviews, pictures, tutorials, podcasts, infographics and videos. You need to regularly review your website content and ensure that these are relevant, well-structured and is something that your target audience needs and wants.

Content strategist and writer Erin Scime points out that there are 5 stages in the content life cycle¹. These are:

• Strategy: This identifies areas of topical ownership as well as the content program, production process and sources of content. The strategy aims to outline how the content will help build the company voice and brand and identifies how to connect the needs of the business with the needs of the target audience.
• Plan: This involves listing down the requirements for achieving the strategy – staffing, CMS customization, metadata plan, marketing/ad model and migration plan.
• Create: This involves the writing of content and checking whether this content helps solidify the brand and drive traffic into the website. This also involves creating a governance model.
• Maintain: This involves evaluating the content, auditing it in terms of target audience response. Using analytics tools, the website content strategist can start weeding out the content.
• Audit: This involves a deeper analysis of the content of the website, as well as partner websites and sister/parent websites. This also includes interviews with content stakeholders.

This is a never-ending cycle with the goal to create a website that reaches out to its intended audience and builds a solid relationship with them. While this cycle is being implemented, you should also take note of some of the best content management practices:

• Know your target audience/user. It is not just enough to identify who your target audience is, you should also know them and how they think. This can help you structure your content based on Utah SEO, user and market research, as well as web metrics tools. This can also help you develop your writing and content style that matches the language and literacy level of the audience.
• Keep your content simple and clear. The language you use will have a significant impact on your readers. Regardless of whether you are targeting audiences with low or high literacy levels, the use of simple language help provide better responses and engagement.
• Involve all stakeholders. The website is not just the effort of the communications department or a pet project of the IT department. Rather, it is a collaborative effort of the team and involves people who are concerned about public relations, branding and marketing, copy writing, website infrastructure and design, user experience and sales. The team, through its different stakeholders, must work together to have a help build a holistic content strategy.
• Get rid of fluff. Clean out your website of “bloat pages” – unnecessary pages that increase the number of indexed pages in Google and other important search site. Review content so that you can eliminate duplication so you can concentrate on strengthening the remaining pages.
• Perform keyword research. This helps you understand how the target audience thinks and speaks about the core subjects your website wants to cover. This provides you with the variations of the keywords for Utah SEO purposes. The SEO keyword search will also help provide new keyword groups which you may want to consider incorporating in your existing pages. You may also add new pages on your website using these new keyword groups.
• Add value to your pages. How does each page meet the needs of your target audience? What value does each page provide them? This means you need to provide something that informs, or inspires. When it aims to inform, it has help the audience solve a particular problem. The sales pages will give the reader the specs they need to make a buying decision. When it aims to inspire, it should touch a common chord in your readers, make them smile or laugh or urge them towards improvement.
• Provide strong calls to action. Engaging your audience does not just mean that they read the content you have provided but that they also do something about what they have read. This can mean creating a contact point or requesting for more information. You can even engage your readers by asking them questions through feedback and surveys.

Adaptivity Pro has remained committed to providing content strategy and content creation services for building websites that engage and build relationships with customers. It is your premiere partner for Utah web design and SLC SEO services based on a solid core of expert designers, artists, writers and content strategist.

Source: ¹http://www.dopedata.com/2009/07/23/panel-on-the-content-life-cycle-at-razorfish/