If you’re starting or growing an online business then it’s important to remember one thing – content is key to online success. Not convinced? Here are five compelling reasons to focus on growing your content foundation.
The Internet is a Giant Library
Content is the foundation of the internet. It’s like a giant library of written, spoken and visual content. If your website doesn’t offer content, it’s not really embracing the reason your prospects are online. Websites that are providing a wealth of content will get the visitors and the sales.
Think about why your prospect is going online. What are they looking for? What information do they need? What problems do they want to solve? Create content that addresses your audience and you’ll be well on your way to significant online success.
Traffic
Traffic is what people online call website visitors. The more visitors you have to your website or blog the more traffic you have. Content plays a very important role in generating website traffic. First, content provides your visitors with a reason to visit your website in the first place. It also provides a reason to come back.
Secondly, content provides search engines with words to search and pages to index. The more pages you have indexed the higher you’ll climb on the search engine rankings. Think about when you go online to search for information. You type in your keywords or question and the results are displayed. Do you click through several pages of results or the first two or three pages?
If you’re like most people you review the first page or two of results and then if you don’t find what you’re looking for you change your keywords. That means you want your website to show up on the first page or two of results. To do this, you want to create a lot of content.
Likeability
Your content is a great way for people, aka prospects, to get to know you. When they read your content they get a feel for who you are and what you’re about. This creates a connection. They like you.
Likeability is a buying trigger. We buy from people, or businesses we like. The more content you have that helps your prospects and readers, the more they’ll begin to like you. The more they’ll buy from you.
Trust, Credibility, Authority
Speaking of buying triggers, we also buy from people or businesses we trust or consider to be experts. You can use content to establish trust, credibility and authority in your industry. Providing valuable information, information that helps your prospects and changes their life for the better will earn you trust, credibility and authority – it’ll earn you sales.
Community
Finally, as more and more websites and blogs show up online, people are starting to change the way they interact. Instead of buying from strangers, they are looking to become part of a community. They want to feel connected to the person or company they’re buying from. Content creates community.
If you’ve been letting your content strategy slide, sit down today or as soon as possible and start creating a content plan. Content is the key to online success