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Content: The Key to
a Successful Website
Gain your
visitor’s attention
Content is the key
to gaining your web site visitor’s attention. You must grab your
visitor’s attention within the first 10 seconds or they will probably
click on to another web site. Have quickly visible textual web content
that jumps out of the screen and captures them. Remember you are
competing with thousands of web sites. Your site needs to have some
unique feature that compels your visitor to remain at your site and
hopefully purchase your product or service.
Large companies
spend a great deal of money on slogans, catch-phrases and logos that
capture the consumers’ attention. Work on a one-line slogan to
summarize what you offer.
Tighten up your web
pages so that this important material is visible on the screen when your
site first opens. Text at the top of the page is most important.
Many web sites rely
on graphic content. That, too, is important, but graphics take a while
to load, especially on the dial-up connections most consumers use. It
is of utmost importance to supply the visitor with something to read
while the graphics load. Optimize the graphics so they take a minimum
of load time.
Keep their
attention
It
is up to 25 percent more difficult to read on a computer screen than
from print.
Documents should
have short sentences, short line-lengths and paragraphs. Paragraphs
should have bold-faced type headings. Documents themselves should be
short because people like to scan read. Remember to check spelling and
grammar.
Use standard web conventions such as conventional placing of navigation
buttons and underlined hyperlinks using blue colored text. Black text
on a white background is easiest to read. 10-point font is easier to
read than 8-point font. Avoid fancy fonts. That's true whatever the
subject of your site, whether you are writing about software or Quarter
horses.
Motivate action
Include a call to
action on the part of the visitor and a way to implement it. Invite the
visitor to buy or to call you today about your product or services.
Then have clear and concise contact and buy instructions on every page.
Include a telephone number if possible because sometimes your visitors
prefer direct personal contact.
Search engines
use content, too.
Besides being
important for your visitors, Content is what a number of search engines
rely upon for site ranking. In an earlier article, we discussed the
importance of good keywords and their use in metatags in the programming
portion of the web site. We discussed effective keyword research.
Research your industry, competitors and most requested search terms.
Identify the keywords that are the most regularly used by your target
audience. You should be using these terms in your title, description,
and metatags, but their most important use is in the actual text you
display on the pages. Include the exact phrases you are trying to
target. Look for opportunities to make links out of search terms
located within your page text. All this will help you to get a higher
search engine ranking position.
A good web page
should include at least 250 words of text. Within that text, aim to
achieve between 5% - 15% frequency for the keywords you are trying to
target. You can check the keyword density with tools like
this:
. Make sure that you place
your most important keywords in text located toward the top of your
page. Try not to target too many terms within any particular block of
text because the more phrases you try to target, the more text you need
to achieve a high frequency.
Add your targeted
keywords to the ALT
tags of images, especially those that link to another page within your
website. Make sure the headings of each page contain the most relevant
search terms for your content. The navigation menu can include relevant
search terms. Also include them in the text you use in product
descriptions. Make sure that the site is easy to navigate and that all
of your keyword-rich text still makes sense to the average visitor.
Web sites are
powerful marketing tools. Fill them with compelling and relevant text
and graphics, so they will capture and hold your visitor’s interest and
generate sales.
A version of this article by Lee Raine appeared in
the March 2004 issue of Equestrian Retailer Magazine. |
