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Section 1: Web content and your business | Web content is important
screen offers no encouragement but instead triggers a torrent of reasons why ‘now ’ is not the right time to write. “Best to leave it to later, after I’ve dealt with…”.
The end result is that the content never gets finished. It never makes it to the published web page, the search traffic never comes, no links arrive and the sales that could have been are never made.
It doesn’t have to be like that. Experienced writers know that writing doesn’t happen by accident. They help themselves to write by reading other people’s work and asking “could I use that idea for my customers? And they help themselves to write by listening carefully to customers and asking “if that customer has that problem many others must have the same problem?”
Wordtracker can help by giving you the keywords that people use when they search. That tells you what people are looking for. Now in The Web Content Recipe Book we hope to inspire you to turn those keywords into content that will really work for your business.
In this book, experienced journalist Rachelle Money gives you 21 different types of content; she gives you the essential ingredients of each as well as real examples on the web so that you can see what works.
The end result is a book which aims to inspire and ensure you’ll never be stuck for a content idea again.
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Never stop marketing
Your content will get noticed, get read and get customers if you use your headline and first
paragraph to let readers know what is in it for them. Here we’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.
Every page is a marketing page
Visitors may first enter your site through almost any page. And for various reasons no matter what you do, many will not read more than one page. Therefore, to maximize response you must treat every page as a marketing page. So we add adverts to where they will be seen, as covered later in this book in ‘How to make your articles sell.’
But only a small percentage of readers will respond when first seeing even quality adverts. You’ll have to work a bit harder for the rest of your readers. You’ll have to use your pages’ content to make them consider a marketing offer (perhaps another day). You must prove that you (and your brand) are expert at delivering what’s wanted, and can be trusted. To do that, your page must first be read.
Who is your site for … and what do they want?
When you’re busy creating content, it’s easy to forget that your website exists to sell your products and
services to particular groups of people. And even if you would never forget such a thing – can the same be said for everyone who writes for you?
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As well researched and expert as you are in your field, it can be hard to put yourself in the position of those targeted visitors who, when they come, will spare just a few seconds to find a reason to read the content.
When constructing an argument or presenting a product, it’s logical to first present the building blocks of your case before giving the end result – something that will make your readers’ lives better.
People buy benefits not features
If you want readers to read on you must spell out the benefits before describing and explaining the features.
Features are the characteristics of what you’re selling. Benefits are the things that those features will do for you.
For example, people don’t buy light bulbs for features like being long lasting, bright and cheap. People buy light bulbs for their benefits, eg, they save money or the planet and help them do things in what would otherwise be darkness.
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Section 1: Web content and your business | Never stop marketing
The headline is the most important part of your content
If your headline does not promise something of interest then your article won’t get read and you’ll struggle to sell. This is because most visitors arrive at a page, read a headline and then make a decision to stay or go.
Also, if a page is linked to from elsewhere on your own site or others, the chances are that it is the headline that will be used. When reading headlines, potential readers are looking for what a page might do for them. They are looking for benefits and if your headline does not deliver, they are gone. Here are a few guidelines for headline writing:
• Promise benefits - tell readers what the content will do for them.
• Don’t be clever or obscure and don’t make the reader think too much.
• Don’t be ironic because most readers won’t know you are being ironic.
• Don’t force readers to read the story in order to understand the headline.
•
Try asking a question about a problem and entice with the solution.
For example, this article’s headline could be: ‘Does your marketing stop when your content starts?’
Its current headline - ‘Never stop marketing’ - is short, clear and gets straight to the point – I’m going to tell you to never stop marketing. Hopefully the possibilities of that prospect – more sales – will entice you to read on, and its mantra-like simplicity will be remembered. It makes no difference that you’ve already bought this book – we (the publishers) want you to be satisfied, tell others how good it is, realize we are experts who can help you improve your website and perhaps buy our next book.
Your first paragraph is the second most important part of your content
Make your first paragraph (aka the lede or the standfirst) as succinct, clear and uncluttered as it can possibly be.
If a visitor has been interested enough in your headline to read on, the next thing they will read is your opening paragraph where you have to give the same benefits with a little more detail.
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Section 1: Web content and your business | Never stop marketing
You can’t explain everything with your first paragraph. So find the most important idea you want to put across, explain what it is and perhaps begin to elaborate on it.
For example, the lede of this article is:
“Your content will get noticed, get read and get customers if you use your headlines and first paragraphs to let readers know what is in it for them. Here we’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.”
It starts with a benefit:
“…get noticed, get read and get customers …”
… and then comes a summary of how to achieve that:
“…if you use your headline and first paragraph to tell readers what is in it for them”
Then the second sentence repeats the benefit with some detail about how this will be achieved:
“…we’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen”.
Hopefully we’ve achieved what this first paragraph set out to do and in the future no visitors to your site will leave without you having done everything you can to get them to read on and (sometimes) buy.
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How to structure an article
Many efforts at writing end in failure. Half finished articles and discarded notes litter the desks of many would-be writers. Why? Because our brains continually tell us, ‘it’s not quite right’, and if we listen to that little voice, we’ll start to scribble out and revise before we’ve properly begun. Indecision and self doubt will inhibit our ability to write.
You’ve got to train your brain not to make these constant interruptions. One of the best ways to do this is to have a clear roadmap or structure that makes it easy for you to get to finish the article.
These are simply good marketing questions that you should ask for any piece of content on your site. Answer these questions well and you’re well on your way to providing content that will help your customers and your
business.
Map out the structure well and then it will be easy to fill
in the gaps – the individual paragraphs that will make up your article. It took me about 30 minutes and four attempts to work out a structure that I’m happy with for this article. I’ve then filled out the gaps in the article you’re reading.
The bonus that many people forget is that if an article is well structured and logical, it will be easy to read and understand. For me the structure has two main parts – the questions I must answer, and the actions I advise my readers to take.
Questions a writer needs to ask
1. Who is this article for? What value will it give them? What do you want people to do as a result?
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2. What are your primary and secondary keywords?
Each article you write should focus on a primary and a secondary keyword. These will be the keywords you want your article to rank well for and you should decide on them before you write any content.
3. What other ideas and keywords are important?
While you will concentrate your optimization efforts on your primary and secondary keywords, there will be many others that will also be relevant. You should be aware of what these are and allow them to appear naturally throughout your copy.
4. What relevant articles have you already published?
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