CD WebMaker-Internet Solutions

Adding Quality Content To Your Web Site

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e've known for a long time that quality matters to Search Engines. I've been saying for quite a while now that quality matters when it comes to content, and that it matters when it comes to incoming links as well. Listen to my Podcasts on Incoming Links.

After good design, developing quality content and incoming links is a large part of organic or natural search engine optimization (SEO).

Building content and links doesn't have to be painful, nor as much work as it sounds. The easiest thing to do is break it down into parts, and constantly be planning for the next "Edition". Some of these ideas can come from the questions your customers ask you. If most people ask for the same information, it's of interest to the masses and your answers can provide content for your web site.

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o, open your minds and think of all sorts of ways of adding quality content to a Web site. Does your creativity need a nudge? Here are a couple tips:

* Allow yourself to think in a totally different way than you've thought before.

* Your Web site content should be written for your buying customers . . . not for you. Your Web site content should not be written for the search engines. The search engines are not your target audience.

* While you should never steal your competition's content, you can take a look at some of the topics they're covering. Prepare your own unique answers and solutions to the questions their customers - and yours - are experiencing.

OK, are you ready to Write Quality Content for Your Target Audience? Here are ideas 1 through 20:

1. A calendar of events. This is ideal for sites like real estate sites to show upcoming open houses; book stores to promote upcoming book signings or writers' meetings; collectors' sites to show meetings across the country, etc. Be sure to allow visitors to send in their own event to be posted to the calendar.

2. Maps. Consider real estate sites, hunting or fishing sites, camping sites, hotels, any outdoor recreational sites or portal sites such as Chambers of Commerce for maps. Be sure to add content at the bottom of the map that describes the map and outlines its purpose as it relates to your site.

This would make an excellent use of Google Maps, where you can add points of interest with name, address, phone number, or other information.

3. Before/after experiences. This is perfect for products or services you're selling where customers can write in and discuss how this particular product or service helped them. These could turn out to be mini articles, or use them as testimonials.

4. Pictures from your customers. You could set up a special place where past customers could post their pictures and journal entries on your site. This is ideal for vacation sites, recreational sites, wedding sites, baby sites, photography studios, etc. How could you use this idea on a Halloween site? On a flower site?

5. Online coloring sheets. Use your imagination here. If you set up some coloring sheets about your vacation property, kids could color those sheets and post them online before their trip in their own special online area. After the trip, their parents could post pictures and a journal of their trip. This is their "Web site" about their trip, all hosted on your site as a perk for booking through your vacation site. What are they going to do with this information? They're going to tell their friends, Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Edna, etc. They're going to link to it. You can use this perk when differentiating yourself from your competition. You'll be building one-way links from your past customers, plus visibility for future customers. Win/win situation. You'll think of many ways of adding coloring sheets (or similar creative activities for kids) to your site, if your site is the type that would work for kids.

6. Blogs or forums certainly add fresh content to a site. Be sure if you do decide to have a blog that you make regular posts to it. I recommend 2-3 times a week at the very least to keep it fresh.

7. Articles or new pages of interest to your target audience. Write new content on a regular basis  once or twice a week should be your goal. You can plan ahead for these updates and/or articles and have them ready to add over a period of time.

8. An expert Q&A on the main page of your site. Get an expert to answer questions, and post one question/answer a week (or a day  whatever you can handle) on the main page of your site. Have past Q&A's in a searchable archive on your site.

9. Product reviews. If your industry has products or services to review, consider writing candid reviews of those products. Publish the reviews on your Web site as well as publish them in a few of the online publications. Readers are always interested in totally candid reviews, where the writer lists the positive as well as the negative aspects of a product. If you have a landscaping business, how could you use this idea? What products do you, as an expert, prefer to use, and why?

10. Short tips. If your product or service lends itself to short tips, write up a series and publish them on your Web site. Send them out in your newsletter. Get your readers to send in tips as they use the product. Offer a discount off additional products if they submit tips.

11. FAQ's. FAQ's are content that your target audience wants to know. As you get questions from your readers, add additional Q&A's to your FAQ's to keep them current.

12. How-to guides. People love "how to" guides. If you sell online plumbing parts, why not have a "how to" guide on installing a new toilet? Make it easy on your customers, and they'll come back to you again and again. Create a series of "how to" guides. Be The Toilet Guy on the Net. May not sound too glamorous, but if you're highly visible on the Net and are converting traffic to sales, you can afford to be glamorous OFF the Net!

13. Content that solves a problem. Why do people visit the Web? To look for information or to comparison shop. If you can solve problems for your visitors, you're giving them just what they're looking for online. For example, let's say that you sell Oriental rugs. Your potential customer might be looking for decorating ideas for her office. Her office is very small, and she's trying to think of a way to add color. Most of the wall space is taken up with windows and metal bookcases. You've created a series of content that shows pictures of problems/solutions that your oriental rugs have solved, including one with an Oriental runner. Not only does the content have pictures, it also has text describing each problem and the corresponding solution. You could use this in conjuction with an expert decorator's advice.

14. Historical data. Let's say that you sell steel pipes. What's the history of steel pipes? Creating a page outlining its history is quite appropriate. In fact, taking it a step further, creating pages that compare steel to copper and other types of piping; what causes rust; how strong is steel; how valuable steel piping really is (how steel piping is used in almost every building, etc.); how long will steel last; and on and on and on will create a whole section of extremely valuable content to a Web site.

Here's the catch. Is this valuable to the target audience of the steel pipe company? Think of one target audience: vocational education classes all over the US. This would be a great resource for them. If they linked to this site, all of them being .edu's, wouldn't this be a great link popularity builder for the site? Think about that for a minute. We're talking about quality content and quality link building.

Another example of historical data would be a historical hotel or destination. The hotel could certainly provide historical data about its location on its Web site as well as tour information, etc. How could a site that sells mustang parts use this strategy? A site that sells wedding dresses?

15. Interviews the easiest way of building content yet! Interview an expert in your industry. Send the expert a list of questions and let the expert answer in his/her own words. Don't change any of the expert's answers, except to correct misspellings or grammatical errors. Always be upfront with the expert, and always maintain the integrity of the article and yourself. Write a series of interview articles, and highlight them on the main page of your site.

Even better, set up podcasts of the interviews!

16. Seasonal articles. Is your industry "seasonal" in any respect? If so, seasonal articles are always extremely popular.

17. Statistics. Offering stats on your site is also another way of adding content to a Web site. If the stats aren't your own, always indicate where you're getting them. Quote the source! How could financial or mortgage sites use this strategy?

18. An advice column. This can be used for a dating site, or it can be used for other sites as well. How could an SEO site use this strategy? How could a decorating site? What about a plastic surgery site?

19. Winners of the month. Let's say you have a site where you sell cut flowers. Get your Web audience to send in pictures of bouquets and arrangements they've made with your flowers. Post the pictures online. Pick a winner of the month, and have that winner's picture posted on the main page of your site. Give the winner a $25 gift certificate.

20. Create video tutorials. Using the flower example, for creating flower arrangements. Make sure you sell all of the materials they'll need to create the flower arrangements they can make if they follow the video tutorials.

21. Again with the flower example, have customers send in an outline of how they created their flower arrangement, the materials they used, as well as the picture. Provide this information on your Web site. Link to all of those materials in your online store. Be creative. Can you do something similar with your own Web site in your own industry? What if you had a costume site? An art site? Give it a few twists and use it on a hunting or fishing site.

22. Send out a monthly newsletter offering your own tips, tips from customers, sale items, holiday ideas, the winner of the month, etc. Encourage readers to post their ideas to the blog. Post past newsletters on your site for more content.

23. A biography about someone's life, if it relates to your industry. You can see how this would work well if you have a Civil War site, a collector's site or a used book store.

24. News events pertaining to your particular industry.

25. Community-related page, if this is a local Web site. For example, you could discuss local restaurants, little league baseball, school openings, etc., on community-related pages or a blog.

Remember to think "quality" when it comes to creating content. These ideas should help get you started.

Not all these ideas will work for all sites, but if you pick up one or two you could use this week, you're that much closer to the quality content you should be aiming for.

Just can't write your own web site content? Next, I'll write a series on where to find FREE content available for use on your web site so stop back!

P.S. Some of these features are available with the CD WebMaker hosting packages and are installed free of charge. Set up fees do apply.