You’ve probably heard the saying “Don’t put your eggs all in one basket”. This saying is true in a lot of areas, but you probably haven’t associated it with the content on your website. The content that you put on your website can’t focus only on one aspect of your company. If it does, visitors are going to lose interest in your website. Even if you have an e-commerce website, you still need to have rich content to keep your customers coming back and your rankings on search engines higher.
Let’s talk links
Many people know that you need inbound and outbound links to add value to your website. These links must be high-quality links to and from reputable websites. While many people who are working a website focus on creating these links from the first day they try to optimize their websites, this isn’t how the process should work. Instead of placing all of the focus on links, you have to focus on your audience first.
Why your audience matters
Your website’s audience has to be the top priority when you are developing content for your website because the audience is who you are trying to keep engaged. Developing content for people who are in the same industry as your company might not be a viable option unless your peers are your target customers.
For example, a website that sells medical equipment would need to have content for the people who will buy the equipment. This would likely be medical professionals or consumers, depending on the products. This website wouldn’t need to gear the content to others who sell medical equipment because the chance of a competitor buying the equipment is slim to none.
Determine your audience profile
Most companies have more than one person who is the ideal customer for their website. Typically, you can gather an age range, gender, and other identifying markers for your target audience. Demographic information from purchases and surveys can help to clue you into who is visiting your website and who is making purchases or interacting on your website. Once you know the demographic information, you can put that information together to determine where your content needs to focus.
Once you find out your target demographic, you can work on finding out what kinds of content they are interested in reading. You can find out what topics they want to know more about and determine how to relate those to your company. Once you have a list of broad topic ideas, you can cover those on your website and then begin to publish more in-depth pieces that cover more pointed concepts within the broad categories.
For example, an investments website could cover some of the basics of investing as the broad topics. Various points, such as how to diversify a portfolio, different types of investments, and market terms are ideas for in-depth, narrowed content.
Putting the process to work
Knowing your audience is only the first step in boosting your website’s content performance. Once you know the audience, you have to get high-quality content to put on your website. If you are like most small business owners, you don’t have time to sit at the computer for hours on end researching concepts, writing up articles, and editing them. This is when outsourcing the website content comes into the picture.
When you are finding someone to create content for your website, you need someone who can come up with concepts, flesh those out, and make content that puts your company in the position of an authoritative leader in your field. You need someone who knows SEO, the most up-to-date algorithms for search engine placement, and how to get quality links for inbound and outbound purposes. The person or company handling your website content also has to be willing to research to find out what readers want now because once a concept is too concentrated online, readers won’t have any use for websites that are rehashing the concept.
Keeping your website fresh
Once you have the first round of content up on your website, your work isn’t finished. Instead, you need new content added on a regular basis. This keeps readers who have already read the previously published content interested in coming back. This also serves as the basis for adding a newsletter or update notification option on your website. Keeping readers engaged and getting them to come back to your website is a priority. Repeat visitors often convert to customers at a better rate than those who are first-time visitors.
When you have the basic content up on your website, you can move toward creating niche content. Working with an SEO company that has an in-depth understanding of how to create a rich website that keeps readers engaged, lends itself to linking, and encourages higher search engine placement can help you to keep your focus on your company while the SEO company focuses on your online presence.
Source: http://searchengineland.com/content-led-seo-will-always-fail-build-links-effectively-268429