How To Know If Your Website Content Is Working For You
“What do I want my website to do for my business?
This is the old, new and every day question you should be asking yourself about your website.
Secondly …
“Does my site contain a good mix of text, audio, video and graphics?”
I don’t think we need to elaborate on this point, it is self evident. Mix it up. Don’t be boring or ‘samey-samey’. The web gods (Google and your users) will punish you. How?
- They won’t share your content
- They will stop reading it – you may not know
- They will stop liking it
- Your search ranking will drift.
- Fewer visitors
- Lower sales
“How does my page headline look?”
Is it relevant, not too long, punchy and written with a mind to catching Google’s and your user’s eye? Headline is the lure, the hook, the smile that entices the user to try your content. So spend time on it.
Content is sales, it obeys the same rules, find out what your customers/users and followers want and give it to them. Is your content fresh? Google loves fresh posts, videos, in fact any fresh content. But the content’s freshness decays over time (see here).
You and your business need to be adding content regularly, this drives customers to your site, improves your search rankings, and gives something back.
“Is my content original?”
Google and your customers want to see original content, reusing other people’s content is wrong for many reasons, one of these is that Google recognises that the content is not yours originally and therefore it will not affect your rankings as much. Also, believe it or not, people know when they are reading something new, they know when they are reading something informative that can add value to their lives, quality shines through.
Your content should have two masters, your user and Google. One of Webbuddy’s mantras is Google does not care about you (the website owner), only about the person doing the search (their user).
UX – User Experience
As you can see from the chart below “the website makes it easy for me to find what I want” is the single most important factor for website users. What does this mean in practice?
Well it means that everything should do what it is supposed to do, what users expect it to do. Your phone number, email address and location should be easily accessible, clickable from the landing page, if not actually on it.
When users click on your telephone number does it enable them to call straight away from their mobile? Do links change colour when you hover over them? Most of us sub consciously know how to navigate our way around websites. This is because there are rules, soft rules, but rules nonetheless. UX is the key to this.
Build your website with the user in mind, make their life easy for them, they will reward you.
“Is my website fast. Is my content optimised for speed?”
Compress your images, avoid too many plug-ins, don’t have pop-ups. Use online pagespeed tools to check if your site is slow.
If your site takes too long to load people will go elsewhere. No joke. How does your content appear on mobile, around 67% of all search in Ireland is done on mobiles, your content should look good, be easy to access, and resize itself easily without losing its appeal on your customer’s phone.
In summary …
Content should be fresh, interesting, provide value for your customers.
Content should be posted regularly, it should be a good mix of audio, video, graphics, images and text. Avoid preachy content, or always posting sales pitches, your site should be a central hub of information, that helps customers learn about your service, that informs them on your expertise and ultimately that lets them buy from you with a minimum fuss.
We provide a content audit service, ask Webbuddy and we will provide you with a breakdown of what you are doing right and how you can improve your content …