It’s Monday again and I thought I could outline why good content can make or break a website. As always, it’s not an exhaustive list, rather it’s my essential pointers on the issue. There are many good web-developers / designers out in the world. Nowadays I really believe that if you walk down the street you will most likely find at least one person that does web-development / design.  Now one could easily start saying that, yes but, not all of them are good at it. I may or may not agree with that opinion but that is irrelevant in the context of todays topic, at least in my mind. I am going to reference a perfect world where all web-developers / web-designers are great at their jobs. Now, let’s get to my point. In my everyday efforts to design and develop websites for local or international clients there’s one thing they have in common and I always take the time to explain. They almost never understand why good content can make or break a website. Most clients come into a meeting saying something like “I need a website for my business and I need it to be number one on Google”. FYI in most cases this is not possible in under 3 to 6 months unless you have amazing traffic, SEO and social media interactions. I am not making this claim to infuriate the SEO experts out there. I am trying to prove a point. A client almost never comes into a meeting saying “Here’s my content. What we do is XYZ and here is some proof that we have satisfied clients”. The whole point to my little rant leads to the list of points I jotted down on    why good content can make or break a website.

1.    It provides value for visitors

So, you started a new website and want people to actually keep coming to your website. We assume people do come but for some reason they don’t seem to stay. There might be a million reasons why that is happening but let’s just assume for a second that the page they are landing on has just 2-3 sentences on it that looks something like “We are XYZ Ltd and we sell cars. See our prices below. Contact Us!”.  Now my little example is a bit extreme but even if I am the best developer/designer out there, if those are the only sentences you can tell me about who you are and what you do my design efforts won’t really ever lead to anything. Simply put if you can’t explain to me in words what you do and why you are different in relation to a competitor than design won’t make any difference in my humble opinion. Assuming you are and expert on cleaning swimming pools you could possibly mention your experience in terms of number of years or mention any VIP clients you handle. I have to be honest and say that I think every single website should have a blog section. Blogging is hard, but the simple fact is that people search the internet for answers to their questions. In the case of a swimming expert I might Google something like “How to get rid of green swimming pool water?” Assuming you have a post on the matter and Google deems you an authority on swimming pools over time you will be my go to website on that matter. Assuming I have another question in regard to a pool issue and your site has a solution I will revisit since you presumably solved my previous issue so as a user I consider you an authority because I found value in your content.

2.    Good Content Generates Sales

Every website I have created has an end goal of making actual money whether it’s a fully online or totally offline business with a simple internet presence. Remember how your business solved my problem after reading your blog post? Well, now assuming you have competitive prices on stuff like chlorine tablets for my pool I will probably buy them from you since I trust you after finding that solution. Thus, your good content lead to me buying something from you.

3.    Quality Content Has A Longer Life Span

Back to my cool example again. Remember the article you wrote called “How to get rid of green swimming pool water?”. Think about this for a second, does it matter what year it is when I am looking for an answer to that question? No, it doesn’t. This type of content which  is relevant any time that same question comes up is known as evergreen content. It will be relevant as long as we have summers on planet earth.

4.    Quality Content Gets Shared More Often

If what I found solved my problem I am very likely to share it on social media which means I am your personal sales force and assuming I have friends that have pools or my friends have friends that have pools they might just find the same content interesting or useful and they will already trust you because their friend does.

5.    The SEO Value of Quality Content Is Greater

Next, I am going to tell you something very basic about SEO without intending to train you. Search engines use words and phrases to figure out what to show you. Obviously the more you write the better. Having a page with a sentence on it that says “We clean pools” won’t cut it if I were looking for the best pool cleaners in Cyprus. Even if by some miracle I came across your site I would probably run for the hills if all I found was a few sentences. I need to see something that proves you are an expert in some way, shape or form.

The lesson I want everybody to take away is that, if and when you need or want a website, make sure you have actual content that explains who you are, what you do, what services you provide and how people can get in touch with you at the very least.

If writing content is not your thing than get someone to write it for you. By someone I mean an actual professional. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at info@georgenicolaou.me