The Right Amount of Content for Your Website

A Start-Up recently asked us about the type of content that should be added to a website. It’s a question that many small business owners don’t think about as much. In fact, almost all entrepreneurs and small business owners know that having presence online is necessary even so today than before. However, more than half of all small businesses are not taking advantage of this opportunity. They don’t have a website. Those that do, their website is not properly optimized with the right set of content that is meant to drive exposure and increase business.

Understanding why a website is needed could get you working towards one sooner than later. A website is a necessity today for small businesses, whether you’re selling a product or a service. It’s an easy way for your potential customers to find you. These days potential customers are connected almost 24hrs daily while at work or play. Connection via smart mobile devices have spiraled over the years which is another evidence to also get your business connected.

So, you’re ready to build a website for your business and is now asking yourself, what kind and how much information do I really need for my website? Putting aside all the fancy designs and styles you could have for your new website, content is king and will get you found by potential customers. And to add to that, search engines are only interested in content.

Assuming you already know what products and or services you want to sell, you can choose to build your own website which is simple today. You can also get help from a friend or family who might know a little more about this than you do, or you can hire a developer or company to take care of this for you. Either of these routes will still require you to provide content for your new website, let’s examine some content types.

Think about your customers, who they are and what would they need to know about your offerings to make them comfortable enough to decide on doing business with you.

Some of the things your customers certainly want to know include:

Information about your business, customers, and team. The About Us page.

This information is useful for your customers when deciding to do business with you. Credentials, experiences are all part of building trust between your customers and your business. Depending on the layout structure of your website, this information can fit within your About Us page section. Some website structure provides single page and parallax layout most if not all the information is available on the landing page with a few scrolls. Others are laid out with navigation style that links all the pages via a main menu and requires clicking each page link to get to the information.

Some questions to ask yourself that would give you content for the About Us page of your website include; who you are, your company’s mission, vision and values, your team, experiences and qualifications. Sharing your story and what makes you different is also a powerful way to present your About Us page.

HubSpot wrote a blog about this section of your website. The blog is titled 10 About Us Page Examples That Are Probably Better Than Yours written by Lindsay Kolowich. Have a read and see how it drives home the idea of what you could potentially want for your website.

Moz also shared some insights about the About Us page entitled 9 Simple Tips For Making An About Us Page That Works For Your Brand you may also want to look at that.

Information about the Products and Services you provide. Products and Services Page.

By the time your potential customers get to this point, they should have some semblance of idea of what you are selling. How you present and describe your products and services will determine whether your potential customers will want to buy from you. Having a well written and laid out products and service page can only help your business.

Answering essential questions like what are the products and services, benefits, the problem they solve, the buyer’s journey, its uniqueness, features and how will you deliver it to your buyers, will add significant value to your products and service page.

Adding call to action or CTA will help potential customers get to the next steps in the selling process. Comparing your products and services with others in the marketplace can also add value. The products and services page must work for you. Your entire website must work for you of course but if nobody gets motivated to buy or at least get funneled into your sales pipeline, you have your work cut out for you until that happens.

If you’re primary reason for the website is ecommerce, then you may want to select a good ecommerce software to build your online store. If not, meaning you’re only adding ecommerce as a side option you can choose a content management system that has a great plugin for this purpose. Almost all content management systems have ecommerce plugins.

Blog Page

Your blog page is perhaps one of the most interactive page on your website because of how often that page is updated with fresh content. Setting up a blog page and using it to drive awareness and education about your products and services is another way to attract potential customers. Demonstrating your knowledge about your industry or services through blogs can be very effective as it positions you as a leader your field.

Blogging helps with search engine visibility and get more of your website pages indexed by search engines. It does take time and money whether you do it yourself or hire someone to get it done. However, it can certainly pay off in he long run as it could generate more leads and engagement for your website. Encouraging engagement is a good thing as it can build lasting relationships between you and your potential customers.

Sharing on social media is now a big trend and your blogs can connect to more potential readers on various social media networks that will be linking back to your website. When your customers share on their social media they are also helping to spread the word which can only be beneficial to your business. At the end of the day, you should see blogging as an investment and if you are consistent at it, you will enjoy a positive ROI in the long term. It’s not recommended to have a blog page if you’re not going to maintain it.

Contact Us Page

The Contact Us page on your website is very important for your potential customers to be able to contact you. Once you’ve established how you want to be contacted you can add those elements to your contact page. A contact form is a good place to start and telephone numbers as well as email address. Adding your email address without the @ sign is a good way to trick bots from picking up your email address. Instead you can write your email as example(at)yourmail.com. Adding help and knowledge based pages to your contact page can also be extremely helpful. Some contact pages also use chat widget to respond immediately to queries. Providing as many options for contacting you will make it less frustrating for your visitors and could speed up your selling process.

Ensure you establish your office hours and response times to eliminate possible confusion. If you promise a 24hr response time on your Contact Us page, stick to it.

Newsletter Sign Up Page

Though this doesn’t necessarily need to be a page, you can add it as a plugin or widget to get your potential customers to sign up to receive offers or updates from your business. You can also give them the option to choose which updates they would want to receive.

If you’re luring potential customers to your website, always give them an opportunity to stay connected with you and follow through with your commitment to stay in touch. Integrating your signup widget with your email marketing software is a good way to ensure contact with your potential customers.

Social Media Links

These are important links to have on your website. You should have social media accounts for your business and that’s a perfect way to connect your potential customers to your social media pages. You can also add your website address to your social media accounts which will redirect social followers back to your website. Some websites also integrates social media feeds which streams on the home page.

There are so many other pages you could add to your website. Gallery, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), News and Careers pages are some examples.

As was mentioned earlier, the kind of content you add to your website will largely be dependent on the nature of your business and the objectives you wish to achieve. Just remember at the end of the day your website is to be designed and developed for your existing and potential customers and they must be at the core when deciding on the kind of content to use.