When you’re managing a website and trying to keep your content up to date, it can be easy to lose track of your objectives. In the short term this isn’t a huge problem but if left too long then you may find that it starts to impact important things like revenue and traffic.
So what are the usual objectives for website content?
1. SEO
An obvious first one, a lot of websites will improve their website rankings on search engines with their website content. This doesn’t mean just filling your page with keywords but making sure that content is relevant to keywords that are searched for.
2. Collecting data
Whether you’re an online retailer, manufacturer or service provider – your website content can provide a draw for your prospects/customers to give you information about themselves. Special offers, hidden content and guides can sit behind a simple form so that willing people give their details in return for valued content. It needs to be really clear what the data is going to be used for and people need to give the opportunity to opt in/out, but this means you can better target them based on preference and give them more relevant services in future.
3. Encourage sales
The quality of the content you provide should correlate directly with encouraging sales. Even if you’re not in online sales you can still get engagement and show yourself as an expert/the obvious choice which will drive through sales offline. Don’t be too pushy with your content, again make it relevant and helpful within their buying process and by making the decision easier you should reap the rewards.
Pitfalls to avoid:
– Adding content adhoc because different departments have different requirements – make sure they’re prioritised within your plan
– Putting up any old content just to keep the site updated – better to have less that’s good than lower your standards
– Not reviewing whether your objectives are still relevant themselves – check in with your business objectives and how you’re helping them be achieved
