It’s all about the benefits. Websites that sell provide benefit driven content.
The primary reason that many sites fail to sell is that they focus on the wrong type of content.
The history of your company, a list of your awards, or catalogue of your products and their features might be fascinating to you, but will be of little interest to your visitors.
Good content addresses the need of your visitors and shows them how your site or your recommended products can solve their problems.
Customer problem focused content, otherwise known as educational content, works because people only search for something on the internet when they have a need for it.
By directly addressing that need with your content, you will guarantee you have an effective website that sells.
Here are some effective content ideas:
1. Articles
Articles are the easiest form of content to add to your site as they are quick to produce and can be tailored to address a specific question that your customers have.
Here are a couple of ways to generate article topics:
a. Check the search function on your website.
What are your customers looking for? Use these searches to construct articles that meet their needs.
b. Try popular article structures such as ‘how to’ articles, ‘top ten’ articles and ‘checklists’.
These article formats are popular because a reader can quickly determine what information is beneficial to them and consume the article in a sitting.
You will be familiar with the target audience of your website, and so will be in the best position to know the sort of information they will be searching for.
c. Think about what type of content you like to read.
Is it straightforward and educational? Is it infotainment – entertaining and informative? Keep a file of articles that you’ve enjoyed reading and use them to generate ideas for your own content.
d. Regularly surf other websites in your field for news and inspiration for articles.
Keep a list of relevant websites that you think are effective and visit them frequently to make sure your site is keeping up with them.
2. Product reviews
Recommending high quality third party products to your customers, that solve a problem they are likely to have, will not only increase your credibility but can increase your income as well.
For an affiliate marketer reviews can be the best way to promote products online.
3. Training courses
Your customers will visit your site to learn something, so why not provide training courses for them?
These can be as simple as a series of short reports, either e-mailed to your customers each week, or available to download from your site each week.
You can also investigate more complex training courses such as video tutorials.
4. Free information and products
When people surf the net, many are initially looking for free information, even if they subsequently end up buying something.
Free information could be anything from articles published on your site to an e-book available to download.
Giving away high quality information will build trust between your customer and yourself and will make them more likely to buy from you.
If you do give away a downloadable information product such as an e-book, make sure you capture your customers’ e-mail address so that giving away the book provides you with the opportunity to market to them in the future.
People are unlikely to buy from your site on a first visit, and if they go away with a free product that answers all their questions, they may feel they do not need to return.
5. Interviews
Interviewing an industry expert or someone that has personal experience in your field can add great content to your site.
Your visitors will appreciate the human element of the interview and often the person being interviewed will have encountered similar issues and problems to those being faced by your customers.
Their advice can be really valuable in involving your customers in your site.
6. Content from other websites
Again, if you are a member of an affiliate program for a relevant business, see if they have any quality content on their site that is available for download and reprint.
Publishing this content, often in article form, and including your affiliate link can increase your revenue as well as your site’s content.
You can also purchase the rights to PLR (private label rights) content which means you have the license to reprint the content on your website. See our resource section for quality PLR publishers.
Business Planning Exercise:
What will your audience want to know? What content ideas do you have? Brainstorm possibilities.
They can be in the form of headlines or simple one sentence summaries. Have fun with this, you’re beginning to build a business and communicate with your audience.
What do you think they want to know?
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Read all about it! Advertise your content.
If you have great content on your site that answers your customers questions do not be afraid to promote it.
Hidden content has no value to anyone, even if it is great quality.
There are simple ways of promoting your content:
a. Make your homepage an index of what can be found on your site.
Visitors make up their mind very quickly whether to stay on one site or move on.
If your homepage tells them immediately that your site has the information they are looking for they will stay and read it.
Your homepage should have a menu with a list of main pages, and a list of your most popular articles at the very least.
b. When you have new content on your website send out an e-mail or newsletter announcing it.
Use teasing extracts from articles, or summaries of training courses to make your customers want to visit your site to take a further look.
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