Don’t be scared of the “C” word: Part 1
Content is king, how many times have you heard that?
As true as this statement is, it is fairly nondescript and pretty generic. Content is king, but quantity does not necessarily mean quality. More often than not you’ll come across a website with paragraph after paragraph of copy that will never get read due to the viewer ‘tuning out’ not long after the headline…if they’ve got that far.
When putting together a content strategy, whether it’s for a new project or an already established website; there are several key objectives you should keep in mind. Here are a few areas you should consider.
Reading habits
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the content, its well worth taking some time to understand viewers reading habits. The process of reading copy on a screen or through a web browser is very different to reading a book or magazine. A user will skim-read through content on a screen rather than have a concentrated read, line by line, as they would tend to do with a book or magazine.
Also, a reader will tend to bounce from one page to another, possibly sharing via Twitter or another social network. Majority of the time this is done without the viewer reading the page from top to bottom.
So how do you keep visitors on your website?
Well, if I haven’t lost all of you through the ‘reading habits’ I mentioned above we will cover this below…
Write for your audience
Before you sit down and start pounding away at the keyboard, take five and think who are you actually writing for. The tone and structure of the content for a website offering legal advice would be drastically different to that of a website offering equipment and advice for extreme sports.
Put yourself in the place of your target audience. How would you communicate and what would you want to know about if you visited your website?
Originality is the key
This doesn’t mean you have to write a masterpiece of English literature straight out of the box. Rather, make your content your own, not something you have patched together from ‘cutting and pasting’ content from other sources. You may think this will pacify the masses … whether that’s your target audience or search engines, but you would be very wrong on both counts.
Starting with the latter, search engines are more intelligent than you will ever be … FACT!!! Google for example, being basically the proclaimed centre of internet searching, puts a lot of effort into heading off this problem with a lot of very clever people and some super groovy algorithms that can jump on this and penalise your website accordingly. Now, there are also many intelligent people out saying that this is not the case, the ‘duplicate content’ issue is just a myth; and they may be right. The question is, are you willing to take the chance?
Lets play devil’s advocate for a minute and say that a ‘duplicate content’ issue is non existent within Google or any other search engine. This brings us back to the first point we discussed a couple of paragraphs ago. Cutting and pasting content from a similar website may well pacify the masses and keep your target audience happy. However, in this day of Facebook, Twitter and many other forms of social sharing, how long do you think it will be before the ‘original author’ stumbles over their own handy work or your website? For just a little time and a modicum of effort you could create you own content and tailor it specifically for your audience.
Always keep in mind; the more your viewer can take from your content, the more likely they are to return to your site, share your content and remember what you had to say.
Make those headlines sticky
How many times have you walked into a newsagents, glanced down at the newspapers and done a double take because a headline has caught your eye? Exactly the same principle applies for online content. It is in fact reported that as much as 80% of all traffic to your given piece of literary genius will NOT read it. That leaves just a paltry 20% to read your article, if you manage to keep their attention after the headline.
A good headline needs to grab and intrigue the reader, making them want to read on. This holds true on any platform, whether its a blog post, a social update or a PPC (Pay Per Click) advert.
Remember, as much as the content you are producing needs to be informative and relevant, its objective is to generate interest. Well written content should guide the reader from one sentence to the next, and then to the next. Good original content will keep your audience engaged until they reach that all important ‘call to action’ … whatever that may be, thus fulfilling its sole purpose.
This, of course, is as long as the content doesn’t seem to similar to something else they have read on another website.
Those pesky search engines
Well, you can all breath a sigh of relief because we’re not going into this minefield just yet, that will come in part two. However, I can’t write an article on content without touching on this, however brief it may be.
Whether we like it or not, search engines have become the central hub of the internet; and Google is by far the biggest fish in this pond. When you are putting your content strategy in place you really have two options…
- Scrape and steal content from other sources, pass it off as your own and run the risk of Google’s wrath (especially following upgrades to the Panda and Hummingbird algorithms) and that of the original author.
- Or, take some time and effort to write your own copy, targeting your specific audience and nurturing engagement.
In part two we will be covering Search Engines, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and how to make your content work in other ways.