What You Should Know Before Creating Your Website Content

What You Should Know Before Creating Your Website Content

“Content precedes design,” explained web design expert and entrepreneur Jeffrey Zeldman. “Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” While it’s all well and good to have a beautiful website for your small business, you aren’t going to convert leads to customers without stellar website content.

The importance of website content cannot be overstated. Website content conveys your marketing message and helps clients get to know you and your business while you also establish trust and credibility. From a technical standpoint, website content is the top factor in your search engine ranking and is the foundation for a successful social media marketing strategy.

It’s not just important to have content on your website, it’s crucial that the content is high quality. Good website content is:

• Original,
• Easy-to-read,
• Up-to-date,
• Accurate,  
• Credible,
• Relevant,
• Persuasive,  
• And most importantly, actionable.

So how does a small business create strong website content that establishes a brand persona and generates leads? The process begins with a solid foundation where you develop a unique value proposition, define your audience, and form ideal buyer personas.

Unique Value Proposition

People purchase products and/or services because they provide a value. A unique value proposition (UVP) is a clear statement that describes the benefit of your product/service (value), how you meet your customer’s needs (proposition), and what differentiates you from your competitors (unique).

Don’t think of your UVP as a tagline, slogan, or a list of features. Instead, think of your unique value proposition as the foundation to your message. As you write your website content, the UVP will inform all of the copy. Keep in mind that your UVP must be simple, relevant, unique, and compelling.

As you draft your UVP, use the following best practices to guide your efforts:

• Keep it short and sweet.
• Use customer-centric language.
• Use active voice, not passive tone.
• Be specific and direct.

Understanding Your Audience

A lot of businesses make the mistake of assuming everyone is their target audience. However, defining your audience is crucial to developing successful website content. Understanding your audience means you better know how to connect with them, thus allowing you to create effective marketing strategies to engage these users.

To define your target audience, ask yourself:

• Who is the audience that would be most attracted to your unique value proposition? Who are they? What are their needs? What other commonalities do these individuals share?
• If you have multiple audiences, what do they have in common? How are they different?
• Who are your current customers?
• Who is your competition? Who are your competitor’s customers?

Ideal Buyer Personas

Now that you understand your audience, you can use your findings to create ideal buyer personas. These are detailed descriptions of your target customer that are based on real data. Creating buyer personas helps your internalize your ideal customers and relate to them as real humans. By doing this, you gain a better understanding of:

• The buyer’s need and pain points
• Their purchasing habits and what they are likely to buy
• Why the buyer decides to make a purchase
• How to speak their language and build a connection.

The data used to determine your ideal buyers includes demographics, needs, pain points, values, priorities, buying habits, and psychographic traits. To gather this information, your business will want to conduct market research, send out questionnaires, review web and social media analytics, talk to employees, and hypothesize based on past experience.

You should think of each buyer persona as a singular person so help you humanize them. Focus on no more than three main personas, and make them realistic. Use the research you’ve gathered to inform your work, so make sure you are asking the right questions about their purchase decision-making process.

Successful website content is not created overnight. The investment in creating a unique value proposition, understanding your audience, and developing ideal buyer personas is a worthwhile one for a small business that is serious about growth and success. Connect with the website content experts at Alt Creative today to discuss a strategy for your company.