Four reasons why quality website content is important
Did you know that content marketing results in 7.8 times greater unique site traffic?
Not all content is created equally. Badly written content, boring content, and content that’s stuffed with keywords can be detrimental to your site. Great, useful content can have the opposite effect.
What is quality website content?
When creating website content, you should not only aim for quantity but quality as well.
“Quality” is a subjective term, however, in general, the type of content you create should be:
Relevant: Your users are visiting your website because of the product or service you offer them. Your content should reflect what you offer.
Anticipates needs: You should be able to anticipate any questions your users have, or will have in the future, and answer them with your content.
Unique: If the content you provide is unique and not available elsewhere, it acts as a draw for new users, and serves as a value-add for existing ones. Even if your chosen content topic has been written about before, adding your particular point of view will make it stand out.
Some of the types of content that you can feature on your website include:
Images
Infographics
Blog Posts
Reviews and Testimonials
Social Media Content
Company Information Pages and FAQs
Product and Service Information
Videos
eBooks and White Papers
The content you publish should always have a purpose. Whether that purpose is information creation or brand awareness, being aware of why you’re adding a particular piece of content to your website means that it is far more likely to add value to your customer and users.
Why is website content important?
Producing quality website content is essential because of the value that it provides your consumer base. It will help you produce results in both the short term and in the long run in a variety of ways:
1. Inform people at the top of your marketing funnel
It’s estimated that 77% of people read content online before they make a purchase, most often in the form of product reviews. When it comes to why website content is important, this is a key point.
Consumers want to be able to trust a product and business before they decide to buy. Creating content helps build that trust, by positioning you as a thought leader in your niche.
Content doesn’t only have to be about what you’re selling. Many great content marketers create content about topics that have nothing to do with what they sell – content about home life, hobbies, or a business book they recently read can make content marketers seem more relatable and human.
If you’re looking to build content for your website, here are some things to keep in mind:
Keep it short – 46% of B2B buyers, for example, prefer shorter formats
Add product-specific content – reviews, FAQs, blog posts, etc.
Shake it up – Include different media like videos, infographics, and other visual content when possible
Make it easy for your readers to access, both in terms of language and tone
2. Increase your visibility
Content marketing helps with SEO. You’ve probably heard this statement before, and that’s because it’s very true.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the way that you increase the visibility of your website on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It can increase not only the quantity of traffic to your website but also the quality of traffic as well. This traffic is also organic, as opposed to driven by ads that you pay for.
There are a lot of elements that go into increasing the SEO ranking of your page, but some of the most important are:
Appropriate keyword usage
Inbound links
Social metrics – links to your website that are shared on social media
It’s easy to create content that is “stuffed” with keywords, but that usually affects the quality of your content. That’s because search engines are looking for the best quality content and do not want to see keywords put in places they don’t really belong. When you create great content, people read it all the way through and search engines reward that. When search engines rank your content higher, that content will help your SEO by making your site more discoverable by your target audience.
Tip: If you want to get a basic read on how your website is doing from an SEO perspective, use Kafen8’s free website audit tool. It will give you some basic metrics, and you can always contact us to request a more thorough audit.
3. Evergreen content keeps you relevant and raises your authority
Evergreen content is content that continues to be relevant for a long period of time. This content often takes the form of how-to tutorials and videos, general buying guides, product reviews, and general tips.
For example, while content about vacationing in a particular year is not evergreen, content reviewing cities as holiday destinations have much more lasting power.
Evergreen content remains useful for readers across months and years and allows you to position yourself as a content leader in the industry. Quality content with a shorter shelf life is just as important, but having a balance between it and evergreen content allows you to consistently rank on search engines and remain a trustworthy source for your clientele.
4. Even if you’re social-first, your site needs quality content
Many modern companies started by selling on social media. And, many modern companies spend more of their energy and focus on their social media content. However, those same companies all come to the realization that they need traffic on their website so they can “own” their following and not be at the whim of the latest algorithm change.
Your website needs to mirror your social media content - your customers and fans see your social media presence and your website as seamless extensions of each other. Your content needs to reflect that.
One great way to support that seamless look and feel between your brand’s social channels and your website is to include a feed that shows your latest social media posts. It’s easy to embed your social on your site - here’s an article from Hubspot that shows you how.
As mentioned, one of the important elements of your site’s visibility is its social metrics. In other words, it matters how often your content is liked and shared on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Aside from its effect on SEO, having your content shared online allows for greater brand visibility and organic website visitors.
Quality website content should be a priority
The importance of great website content not only lies in its ability to position you as a leader in your industry but also to differentiate you from your competitors. Creating effective content – content that is not only high quality but also useful to your consumers – will provide your website with lasting power and boost your business’s online success.
Business owners must make content creation a priority. Use tips from experts to help guide you, but don’t be afraid to make mistakes, either. Get on Facebook Live. Do that podcast. Write blogs that are helpful to your audience. Your potential buyers will thank you.
Kafen8 Tip: Once you have created that great website content, don’t forget to optimize your website content for SEO so that you increase the content’s visibility.