Solid web content can serve your small business well across a number of areas. For starters, engaging content has the power to increase website traffic and boost your search engine ranking, thereby making scores of new consumers aware of your brand.
Secondly, good content can show prospective patrons how knowledgeable you are about the industry your business serves. However, if neither you nor any of your team members have content creation experience, taking your web content to the next level is liable to prove tricky. Any small business looking to kick its web content into high gear would do well to consider the following measures.
Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) has played a prominent role in digital marketing for over a decade. Since Google and other popular search engines have become the primary means through which consumers find new businesses, it’s in your best interest to boost your search ranking as much as possible.
In essence, SEO entails optimizing your business’s site and content to receive a favorable search ranking. Keyword integration, reputable backlinks, title tags and meta descriptions are just a few of the vehicles through which your site can achieve a higher ranking. If search engine optimization is an altogether new concept to your business, consider enlisting the aid of professional SEO services.
Consistently Update Your Site’s Content
There are numerous reasons you should be updating your site’s web content on a consistent basis. For starters, this will incentivize your existing audience to keep coming back. On the flipside, if you only post new content once in a blue moon, regular visitors are liable to get bored and focus their attention elsewhere.
Secondly, regular updates can prove beneficial to your site’s search ranking. When arranging search results, the web’s most popular search engines take a number of factors into account – and update frequency is among them. So, if content updates are few and far between, don’t be surprised if your search ranking is well below what you’d like it to be.
At minimum, you should be posting a new blog post, feature article or video once a week. If you don’t have time to produce this much content, consider having your various team members alternate content creation duties. In addition to being efficient, this system helps ensure that your content will encompass a range of voices.
Use Keyword Integration
Keyword integration should play a large role in your content creation efforts. As previously stated, it ties directly into search engine optimization and stands to dramatically boost your search ranking. Before determining the types of keywords to utilize, you’ll need to decide whether you’re trying to reach a local audience or a national one.
After all, if your small business is locally-focused, there’s no sense in trying to compete for a better search ranking on a national level. For best results, the keywords you employ should reference the nature of your business and its locale. For instance, a web design company in Phoenix can benefit from using keywords like “best web design in Phoenix” or “Phoenix, AZ web design.”
It’s also imperative that you incorporate keywords into content as organically as possible. Shoehorning them in or using them excessively (a practice known as “keyword stuffing”) can have two noteworthy consequences. First off, it stands to drive away both current and prospective patrons, as most people are smart enough to realize when they’re reading keyword-stuffed content.
So, while such content may succeed in directing people to your site, these individuals are unlikely to stick around. Secondly, if search engines grow wise to what you’re doing, your site’s search ranking is liable to drop considerably. Search engines generally frown on keyword stuffing and won’t hesitate to penalize sites that engage in it.
Good web content has the power to entertain, inform and grow your business. Unfortunately, many enterprises don’t put nearly as much effort into content creation as they should, with a fair number of businesses regarding it as an afterthought.
However, the longer you place content creation on the backburner, the more difficult creating solid content is likely to become. So, if you’ve been looking to give your business’s web content a real shot in the arm, don’t hesitate to employ the previously discussed pointers.
