Writing for my website? I thought I was finished!

Author: James Sharp – Glendale Designs

It amazes me how many websites are created each day! I’m not sure that anyone can tell how many new sites are actually posted daily, but one indicator would be the domain name registrations. Granted, you have new domain names, expired and transferred domain names. But to give you an idea, today there was 132,005 new domain names registered with over 3.1 billion total IPs in 240 countries. That is a LOT of websites.

Way to often a site will be published and remain stagnant! People invested in a domain name, hosting, development of the site, possibly an SSL certificate, images, writing content and more. Once it is completed it seems like they sit back and think “I’m finished. I’ve created a new venue to advertise my business 24 hours a day and now customers will contact me.” The problem is, if fresh content isn’t added to the site on a regular basis, then visitors and search engines alike will return less frequently.

There are numerous different types of business profiles and structures. However, site traffic for just the sake of traffic really should not be what you want; rather targeted traffic should be the ultimate goal. What I mean by this is, when a search phrase is placed in a search engine the person then lands on a relevant article or product page and wants to act on your call to action. Be it ordering your services, your products, signing up to your newsletter or filling out your contact form.

You may already sell a product or service that is readily available on the net. Let’s say one of the services you sold on your website was “Social Marketing”. You could place "Full Service Social Marketing” (or a variation of this phrase) into a search engine. Once the search results appear, commonly you will start reading through the top listed sites and click on a result that looks like what you are searching for:

• Your first impression is important! When you arrive at the site, does the site instill trust or confidence? Is it easy to navigate? If not, then you will quickly leave and go back and keep searching…
• Are the services offered really what you were looking for?
• Is the value of the service what you expected?
• Are there testimonials posted that you trust (are they verifiable)?

What it comes down to is simple:

In order for your site to rank well in search engines for your targeted keyword phrases, you need to provide detailed, relevant content (containing those phrase and synonyms) for the products and services you provide.

The internet gives you the opportunity to compete on a more leveled playing field. You don’t have to have the high overhead of a brick and motor store to start a business. But in order to be an authority or successful; it is critical to have high “organic search engine rankings”. You wouldn’t go page 10 or 20 to find what you’re looking for – neither will your potential customers. You have to be at least within the first 3 page results and try to work your way onto page one, if at all possible. Again – keep more targeted key phrases in mind when working towards that goal.

In a nutshell you should view your site as a living thing. You should nurture it; keep it alive with fresh new products, services and write your content “For Your Customers” without stuffing it with keywords. I have seen way too many sites that are written for search engines and that don’t talk to the customer. All that does is increase the sites bounce rate or worse. I’m sure you will find that when you write for your reader’s experience, generally the rest will fall into place.

Good luck and happy writing!