All about web content

By: Tash Hughes of Word Constructions

A web site containing only graphics, images and buttons would be pretty useless, so web content is obviously important. No product or service could be sold without some content on the pages.

It is commonly stated that Search Engines rank pages and sites according to their content, so this is also a good reason for ensuring your site has a fair amount of content included. Rankings can be very important for gathering potential clients.

So, there are obvious advantages to including text on your site.

Yet the most important and relevant reason for adding content is to help and satisfy your customers. And the higher quality the content is, the better it will serve these customers and happy customers are what keep businesses alive.

Every word written on your web site is counted as part of your content, and it is all important. Welcome messages, product descriptions, articles, contact details, payment options and company details are just some of the content ideas you can choose from.

The content needs to be appropriate and relevant to your business; the style of the content is also controlled by the nature and vision of your business. An academic reporting business is likely to use formal writing styles and few images whilst a site for children will have more images and simple text for them to understand.

Regardless of how informal the style, the content still needs to be correct, both in terms of facts and grammar. Factual errors reduce your credibility whilst grammatical and typing errors are unprofessional. There also needs to be clarity in your words and a flow of thoughts.

Readers of internet material are less inclined to read long passages than traditional books and magazine readers. The content of your web site must be brief and separated by white space, or it is likely readers will stop before reaching the end.

Make sure your content is of interest to your site visitors; if they visit your site to buy bike parts, keep the content about bikes and riding, and avoid text about your favourite fishing rod brand.

Content also needs to be fresh and current. Consider changing some of the content every so often – maybe add a new article each month or swap around product orders and descriptions. Any content that is date specific must be regularly updated. For instance, being invited to a great function two weeks after it happened will leave your readers with the impression that you are uninterested in maintaining your site with up-to-date information.

Having good web site content will also make it more likely visitors will return to your site, and thus increase the chance that they will buy from you rather than someone else.