It’s the most fundamental marketing piece for any business, and yet many small business owners still don’t really know what to put on their website! Some get bogged down thinking about design – colors, fancy Flash elements – and forget all about the main purpose of the site. Think about it: why are people visiting in the first place? Because they want to know what your business has to offer them and how your products or services are superior to those of your competitors.
Remember: content is king. Always has been, always will be. Engaging a professional copywriter is best – hire someone who understands web marketing and SEO best practices. The content of your site needs to be engaging and informative for your potential customers, but it also needs to be search engine-friendly. What’s the point of having a website if nobody can find it?
Good web copy uses simple, active language to inform, rather than oversell. Nobody likes an in-your-face sales pitch. Concentrate on introducing a topic – usually a typical problem your customers face – and then discuss a solution. You might mention your product or service once or twice, but don’t try to push the sale on the informational page. Rather, create a separate page where customers can see all the features, benefits, and costs associated with the product or service.
A website with concise informational pages provides an excellent opportunity to optimize for search engines. Make sure your copywriter has done (or has access to) sound keyword research (a topic we’ll cover in more depth in our next article) and has included the identified phrases in all the titles, headings, internal links, and text of your site. It’s a tricky balance – you don’t want to be repetitive, and you certainly don’t want too many keywords crammed into one page. One topic per page, featuring no more than two or three keyword phrases, should be your guiding rule. Poorly done SEO can actually harm your rankings.
Check out our follow up post, “Online Marketing Considerations for Small Business Owners in 2016” for the latest on online marketing considerations.
