Content, Content, Content...
As the title suggests, content is one of the single most important aspects of your new website. Compelling and original content is essential, alongside a recognisable logo, a clear functional menu system and coherent web design.
The importance of original content cannot be stressed highly enough and is well worth taking time over to make sure the content you do write is clear, concise and to the point especially if you are running an e-commerce site with the aim of selling online.
Writing compelling content can be a tricky business because you have several factors to consider while covering all the points you want to talk about, here are some key factors to consider when writing your content:
- Keep your content relevant to your websites subject matter
- Try and keep your content concise and to the point
- Make sure your content is informative
- Incorporate keywords into the fabric of your content
The last point is very important, as it will help with your results in search engines, such as Google. Writing keyword-rich content will help search engines identify the subject of your website and catalogue accordingly, leading to improved search results.
Is Writing Original Content Really That Important?
Well, lets put it this way, anyone who says it is not is telling lies and will suffer online for it.
As you can see in this quote from Google webmaster central, search engines rate original content pretty highly!
“…If your site contains multiple pages with largely identical content, there are a number of ways you can indicate your preferred URL to Google. (This is called "canonicalization".)
However, in some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can result in a poor user experience, when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results…”
As you can see Google are very hot on duplicate content, so it is going to be well worth your time putting some time into writing new content solely relevant to your website.
Working With Your Web Designer/Developer
We recommend working with your web designer/developer to establish the structure of your website and exactly what pages you will have on your website. This will give you a clear idea of exactly how much content is required and will guide your web designer in the development of the site.
If you are unsure of exactly what your content should contain then your web designer/developer should be able to give you a clear idea of what sections you should include depending on the type of website you are having and the subject matter.
We also recommend that you take some time to perform some research of other websites that are similar in theme and content. This will also give you an idea of the kind of content you should and should not be writing.