We’ve known for a long time that quality matters to Google. In a post Senior Google Engineer
Matt Cutts made to his blog,
“quality” was mentioned several times as being important to Google.
Quality matters when it comes to content, and it matters when it comes
to links.
However, building content and links doesn’t have to be painful. Web
site owners tend to think of content in a very limited way.
So, let’s open up our creative minds and think of all sorts of ways of adding quality content to a Web site.
A few things to remember:
• You’re only confined by the boundaries you set for yourself and your
Web site. 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.
• Think of the overall picture of your site, as if it were a living,
breathing entity. After all, Web sites should continue to grow on a
constant basis and never be stale or stagnant.
Let’s Get into the Fun Stuff: Quality Content for Your Target Audience
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.
Put a calendar of events online
.
2. Maps. Consider real estate sites, hunting or fishing sites,
camping sites, hotels, or any outdoor recreational sites 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.
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 as part of your USP (Unique Selling
Proposition) 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.
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.
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 software 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?
What about creating reviews of home or
kitchen appliances?
Single cup coffee maker
**** out of 5 stars.
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 – 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.
Your potential customer found your page in the search engine results.
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 hotel on St. Simons Island. The hotel could certainly provide
historical data about the island 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.
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. Using the flower example, create video tutorials
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. Use customer input.
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 pictures. 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 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.
We’ve only just begun with ideas. It all depends on the industry
you’re in and the products or services you sell. Put your creativity hat
on and brainstorm.
In Conclusion . . .
Remember to think “quality” when it comes to creating content. These ideas should help get you started.
And think about this point as well. If you start creating quality
content, what is certain to follow? Quality links. Sites will begin
linking to your content, because you’re doing what you should be doing:
giving your customers what they want to see when they visit your Web
site. They want to see new and exciting “quality” information that’s
updated on a constant basis. You become the trusted source of that
information.
About Author
Robin Nobles conducts live SEO workshops
in locations across North America. She also teaches online SEO training. Localized SEO training is now being offered through the
Search Engine Academy.
