How To Create Great Website Content In 12 Steps

The importance of high-quality website content is hard to underestimate.

As was noted in the latest survey report on website strategy released by JONES and our partner HubSpot:

“In the end, (a website’s) goal must be to provide users with the information they want, when and where they need it.”

While design, accessibility and personalization all play a role in providing a positive user experience, none of those factors can make up for poorly planned and sloppily written content.

Whether you are creating a new website from scratch, or are conducting either a website audit or marketing content audit to prioritize your marketing objectives and spending for the coming year, the 12 steps outlined here by THAT Agency provide a scaffolding on which to build.

Please include attribution to https://thatagency.com/ with this graphic.

Our blog and Inbound Marketing Learning Library are both full of resources that can help you go deeper into each of these steps. Here are some that I suggested as a starting point for tackling the main challenges in these 12 steps.

Buyer personas

Creating buyer or customer personas helps you pinpoint the pain points, buying cycles, information needs, and content preferences to focus on as you create your website content.

• Create A Great Customer Persona (blog post and downloadable sample)
• 3 Reasons You Need Customer Personas (blog post)
• Branding Mistake: Not Mapping Out Buyer Personas (downloadable guide and template)

The buying journey (aka sales funnel or customer sales cycle)

Just as you need to understand each persona or target market, you need to provide content for leads at each stage of the buyer’s journey, from awareness and consideration through decision-making and post-purchase support.

• Full-Funnel Content Strategies & How They Benefit SEO, Social Media & Website Development (blog post)
• 3 Offers To Use For Each Stage of the Sales Funnel (blog post)
• 3 Ways To Define The Customer Sales Cycle & Segment Marketing Efforts (blog post)

SEO

From keyword selection to on-page SEO and the use of microdata to improve the CTR of your search results, details matter when creating website content that your customers can find.

• On-Page SEO Planning Template (downloadable spreadsheet)
• Microdata, Schema & Rich Snippets For The Non-Designer (downloadable cheat sheet)
• Rethinking Search Optimization: Content That Goes Beyond Keywords (blog post)
• Write For Readers, Not Search Engines, To Boost Blog SEO (blog post)

Calls-to-action

In order for your website to be more than an online billboard, you need to include calls-to-action and ways for visitors to engage with your site, whether it is as simple as asking them to “Subscribe Here” to your blog or e-newsletter, to download a free trial, or to make a purchase, include multiple opportunities that invite them to engage now.

• The Comprehensive Guide To Designing & Executing Calls-To-Action (downloadable ebook)
• Your Call-To-Action Checklist: 7 Things To Ask Yourself When Creating CTAs (blog post)
• What Your Website Needs: Effective Calls-To-Action

Visual design

Video and images are essential to keeping today’s websites engaging, but they must be intentional and well-done. Earlier this year, this blog talked about four current website design trends, including background video, split content, bold colors and big typography.

Fresh content

There are many ways to keep your website content fresh for both search engines and readers. One of the simplest is to commit to a regularly published business blog, which continues to provide new content to keep the web crawlers coming back to index your site and is also an ideal vehicle for achieving what I outlined at the very beginning: providing users with the information they need, when and where they want it. Thinking of starting a business blog? These resources are a good jumping off point:

• An Introduction To Business Blogging (downloadable ebook)
• Complete Kit of Business Blogging Tools (downloadable package of calendar template, writing templates and an SEO checklist)
• 7 Business Blog Rules To Attract & Keep Readers
• Business Blogging: Do This, Not That (blog post and infographic)
• Rate Your Business Blog Strategy (blog post)

Now is the time to ensure your website and its content are up to the challenge of an increasingly-online buying experience for both consumer and B2B goods and services. Schedule a no-obligation consultation to talk with me about how JONES can help you if you decide to join the nearly 2/3 of marketers who are upgrading their websites this year. It is a project worth undertaking.