Many people concentrate on design and functionality of the website and forget about relevant content. The website is a primary vehicle for delivering the business objectives, purposes. When you treat content as an afterthought, your ability to make a useful website fail.
It is a constant challenge for a content strategist like me, wrestling for years to convince the management to push content as the primary heart of user experience. This post shares one of my experience involved in building and implementing the content strategy for a company website I worked earlier.
I hope after this, you ( maybe as management or a business person) start thinking:"Content -First For Better Website Results"
The content generating for the website should address the problem and solutions provided by the business to the ideal buyer without neglecting the purpose of business. You create a smarter content focusing on design for better user experience. The main goal of the website content is :
The Time required to seeing the ROI: mini ( 8-12 ) months after implementing the content marketing plan without any obstacles and deviation.
A Content Strategy requires the team effort from all peer disciplines.
The team involved in the building the content strategy are as follows:
- BDE & Sales: They collect the big problems of the ideal customer and points they mainly look for.
- Content Strategists: They prepare the answers to the questions like what to write, where to write and how to write
- Website Architects & Developers- They take care of technical issues involved in developing the website at the server side.
- UX & Visual Designers - They take care of look and feel of the content. They create the webpage with a dummy content.
- Content Writers: Create the content as per the design and satisfying the content strategy.
- SEO- They take care of search engines.
Content Generation Ideas for the website.
The content generating for the website should address the problem and solutions provided by the business to the ideal buyer without neglecting the purpose of business. You create a smarter content focusing on design for better user experience. The main goal of the website content is :
" To produce more useful and more usable content to online audiences, meeting the business objectives."
There are two components to consider- People Components and Content Components.
By Deepika Rallapalli
- The substance is all about tone, style, topics, working titles, subheadings etc.,
- The structure is about content breakups, the building blocks etc.,
These two components are considered as content components as they only deal with content.
- Workflow is about the process & procedure of resources involving in the entire process, best content management tools and website building platforms a company can use.
- Governance is to figure out the maintenance and consistency of changes happening to the content or design. The website needs continuous monitoring of its performing.
These two components are considered as people components as it involves human resources and their activities.
Allow me to give an example to explain above two component. SmartSocialBrand is an Inbound marketing company that provides marketing services to the clients and training to experienced and non-experienced marketers. Their homepage looks like this:
Allow me to give an example to explain above two component. SmartSocialBrand is an Inbound marketing company that provides marketing services to the clients and training to experienced and non-experienced marketers. Their homepage looks like this:
The content components involved here are the main menu and internal pages. The images and background colors used, content and its position. The call-to-actions and landing pages. etc.
Once these things are done. Now, it's time to inform the Google about the website. My SEO team has done all the required on-page and off-page SEO activities required.
Finally, It is time to promote the website.
The winning hook of Content Marketing Strategy.
This requires 5 W and 1 H mapping. The 5 W's would be :
- Why – Why are you providing for this service/business/product?
- What – What is that you want to deliver? What is the message?
- Who – Who is the ideal audience?
- Where – Where will the message be read by the audience (which location, on what device, situation/context)?
- When – Time required for creating the process and publish.
- How – How should you present the website and structure the content?
You can answer these questions by drawing a simple website content planning worksheet. 
The Web Content Strategy Planning template is also available to download
The Fruits of the Website Strategy are the sweater with proper marketing.
Once you get the answers and all the people, content components, it is easy for you to follow the process and develop the content. Once, you publish the website the actual process of Content Marketing begins.
Only after the proper implementation of content marketing techniques, you will enjoy the beauty of online marketing.
Remember one thing- there is no shortcut to success other than hard work with smart move. Similarly, content marketing requires a lot of planning and strategic approach and it takes time to get ROI/ results.
Time Involved In Practical Implementation
Time Involved in planning the strategy: mini 3 months ( preparing Buyer personas, content mapping, topics and working titles, and editorial calendar )
During this process, you need to have complete co-operation of your sales & marketing team. You need to maintain documentation of each process involved. A lot of companies neglect documentation. But, they are important to keep yourself tracked on the work done on daily basis and help you follow the procedure one after the other.
The Time required to seeing the ROI: mini ( 8-12 ) months after implementing the content marketing plan without any obstacles and deviation.
In content marketing, there is a formula called HER formula. It states that the online customer need to get habituate with reading relevant content provided by you. They need to start engaging with you and discuss the issues they have so that there is a bond/relationship is built. Finally, they react with an action desired or required like contacting you for business.
Unreal Expectations from Content Marketing
I would like to discuss this point because, during my professional working with clients, I come across these unreal expectations from management making the weather hotter.
#1 Myth: If a blog is maintained which is non-relevant content and stuff with keywords and do SEO, you get ample of visitors.
Have you observed anytime about the bounce rate? People leave your website within no time if your content is not relevant. For example refer the blog post on The 10 Best Apps For Medical Conference. This blog shares a title as which conveys to that it is going to provide information about those mobile apps which share information about Medical Conferences. When you observe the body , it gives general mobile apps that are helpful when you plan a trip abroad.
It is not relevant to the Title given. It is expected to give information about those mobile Apps that give details about Medical Conferences. Refer: the blog post about same topic you will observe the difference.
#2 Myth: My Facebook posts are seen by many and I am getting views.
Increase in the number of views for the post you published on social media doesn't mean that your post is liked by them. They just saw it.
#3 Myth: My marketing people and sales executives manage the customers and get the sale. We don't need emails and sales pitch for them. And they give price quotes on spot.
This is the most common dialogue the management uses. But, let me tell you, the sales and marketing executives are your brand ambassadors. You need them to represent your company not only professional but also need to handle the clients carefully even at rejections and objections. Your email represents your standards. So, email marketing should never be neglected.
#4 Myth: I don't need landing pages and content offers on my website. Why does someone need to download my content and info-graphics?
Well! they store them and refer to them whenever needed. And when they are storing an information provided by you that means you are providing helpful content and thus helping them to solve their problems. Moreover, there is a possibility of distributing the content offer to others. Thus, your company is mouth spread and hence helps in branding, promoting.
#5 Myth: We don't need buyer personas. We know everything about our leads.
This is the biggest myth the management have. Online shopping trends are so volatile in nature. Their change in inevitable and unpredictable. You need to constantly upgrade your marketing and sales approach as per the changing trends of online shopping.- People who generate the most revenue
- People who get along with your team
- People whose projects challenge you
- People who share your beliefs or convictions
- People who are passionate about what you do
- Are the people who take every step wisely and use Inbound Marketing Approach.
