Creating fresh, on-going content is one of the largest influences in how your content ranks on Google and other search engines. Search engines want to ensure that they’re providing their users with the best, most relevant, and up-to-date information. To do this, they measure how often you update your website with new content like articles, videos, as well as how often you update existing pages on your website.
So what can you do to ensure you keep a steady stream of fresh content that’s both relevant to your business, and good for your search engine rank?
Here are a few ongoing content strategies that’ll keep your website fresh:
1. Create a blog
The easiest way to produce ongoing content for your website is to create a blog. You can update your blog with new content as often as your schedule allows. Best of all, the blog opens an avenue to share your passion for your business. It’s a place where you can connect with your customers, share real-life anecdotes, and offer tips and advice that are relevant to your products and services.
For instance, if your website is an ecommerce clothing store, a blog that features content such as styling advice, upcoming trends, outfit of the day, etc., is relevant not only to your core business, but to your customers, too.
2. Update service pages on your site
Too often businesses get caught up in thinking that their blog is the only part of their website that needs to be updated.
In fact, updating all areas of your site frequently is a sure sign to search engines that your website is generating new content. This doesn’t mean you have to overhaul your website every few months, it simply means adding a new sale promotion here or there, rotating featured items and banners, or adding new, relevant information as your policies or products change.
3. Make it easy to read
The key to coveted ongoing content is to make it accessible and easy to read. These content writing tips will give your words additional pop:
- Using numbered or bulleted lists and subheads makes content easy to scan.
- Avoid large, intimidating walls of texts – or, humongous paragraphs – which are difficult to decipher, and hard on the eyes.
- Use simple, clear language. Industry jargon and unnecessarily complex phrasing only serve to make you sound smart, and your content difficult to read.
- Always prioritize readability first, ahead of search engine optimization and keywords. If you think it sounds awkwardly stuffed with keywords, it probably is.
- Include pictures, illustrations, graphs, or other visual elements to further break up text and add visual interest.
4. Think about what your customers want
The best way to approach your content strategy is to write for your customers first and foremost. Every piece of content or webpage on your website should serve one of these purposes:
- It answers questions about your products or services (i.e. product pages)
- It helps customers do business with you (i.e. find location pages or checkout pages)
- It gives customers a reason to want to work with you/do business with you (i.e. your ‘about us’ page)
- If offers something of value to readers (i.e. a blog that offers tips for using your products)
5. Make it sharable
Adding crisp, search engine-friendly content to your website is only a part of the ongoing content equation. Creating content that you can share on your business’s social media accounts allows you to reach out to even more potential customers.
Make sure the content is accompanied with a visual (pictures get way more clicks on social media), and that it gives readers a reason to want to click to learn more. The most popular content on social media usually features funny or emotional stories, best of lists, and how-to’s, among others.
6. Include visual content too
Many website owners opt to create a blog and leave it at that. However, there’s other types of content that you may want to consider, such as:
- Videos
- Infographics
- Case studies
- Presentations
- Whitepapers
These are fantastic alternatives for conveying complex information in a simple format, preventing you from getting into a rut with content that’s too similar, offering different forms of content to customers who prefer visuals over reading. They’re also very visceral for sharing on social media.
7. Update frequently for better results
Whatever content strategy you decide to go with, frequent updates are a must. It’s recommended that you update once a week for the best results if possible; once a month should be the bare minimum. Once you have an update schedule you’re confident you can keep up with, stick to it!
Do you need help developing your content marketing strategy? Print Three’s content marketing experts can help you devise a strategy that works for your business.