If you’ve read my article on “6 Tips To Get Google’s Attention“, you’ll know that writing great content for your website should be your number one priority. But not everyone is a budding Shakespeare! So, what is “great content” and how do you write it?

Well, it’s a bit hard to define precisely what “great content” is. Its exact format can vary from website to website, from page to page, from author to author. But in the end it boils down to being able to tick at least one of these boxes.

• Interesting
• Enjoyable
• Informative
• Useful

As well as falling into one of these categories everything you write must also be,

Correct – make sure you check your facts and any other information in your article. Getting things wrong can instantly destroy your reader’s trust.

Well written – check spelling, punctuation and grammar. Poor writing detracts from your message and creates a bad impression. Search engines also check grammar as it can be an indicator of lack of quality content.

Your own words – NEVER copy and paste from another article. You can base your content on something you’ve seen or read but you must use your own words and add your own ideas. The search engines really hate copying and will penalise your site if they find what’s known as duplicate content.

Does Everything Have To Be Great Content?

My answer to this question is, if you’re going to write something for your website why wouldn’t you make it as good as possible?

Your homepage, about us page, contact page, product pages and all the other blocks of text dotted around your website should all fit the same constraints. I’m not suggesting that your about us page should be an epic novel describing the trials and tribulations of setting up your business while overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles to emerge as a flourishing organisation dedicated to delighting its customers. But you can make it interesting and useful. Leave out the irrelevant bits and focus on what the customer needs to hear to give them confidence in you.

Similarly your product descriptions should be more than, “It’s green”.

Every piece of text in your website is an opportunity to engage both your website visitor and, just as importantly, the search engines.

What Do I Write about?

For a lot of the pages in your website this will be fairly obvious. Your homepage, product pages, etc. Again, don’t be lazy, consider what the website visitor wants to read and needs to know, and structure your text around that.

For your blog and information pages you need to be more creative. There really isn’t a wrong thing to write about. If it’s relevant to your website and your company and is something you think your website visitors would want to read then write about it. The more great content you put into your website the better.

If you’re stuck for ideas have a look at what other people are writing about. What’s happening in your marketplace? Have a look at social media and forums to see what questions people have about your marketplace then answer them in an article. Don’t just restrict yourself to subjects other people are covering. What do *you* find interesting, what might make your customers take a second look?

What about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

I’d like you to approach article writing with a slightly different mindset.

Although we are writing articles to boost your search engine ranking you absolutely must not write solely for the search engines.

First and foremost write to engage your website visitors. These are potential customers and therefore important. Great content impresses the search engines and they will start prioritising your website as well.

What about Keywords?

The days of writing an article focused on a single keyword or key phrase are gone.

Keywords and key phrases are what people type into a search engine. In the olden days we used to find popular keywords and build pages focused on that single phrase with the idea that when people searched for that keyword our webpage would pop up.

These days completely optimising a page for a single phrase will do more harm than good. This technique leads to unnatural sounding text. The search engines seek out over-optimised content. It’s a massive indicator that people are writing solely to improve their search engine ranking and are not concerned about the user experience.

If you write great content you will naturally use a range of targeted words and phrases all focused around the central theme of your article. This is what the search engines look for these days. Yes, we still consider keywords. But we now theme our content using a range of associated phrases to emphasise our knowledge of the subject.

Isn’t This A Lot Of Hard Work?

Yes. I won’t lie to you, but it’s worth it.

Adding interesting content to your website can be enjoyable and rewarding. Air your views on developments in your marketplace. Talk to your customers through your articles. Your pages don’t have to be laser-focused on your marketplace and sales funnel. Have some fun too and your customers will respond.

Let Me Do It for You

Of course, not everyone has the inclination or time for this task.

I offer a full website content package where I (and my writers) will find topics and research and write articles for you. We’ll also do all the more technical bits (which I hope to cover in later articles) such as content theming, keyword analysis, etc. which can make sure you get the full benefit from the new pages.

Contact me to discuss your needs.

I’ll be covering more aspects of content creation in later posts so make sure you subscribe to my newsletter or follow me on social media to keep up with the latest updates.

Thanks again to Debra Grant Photography for a fantastic photo to go with this post. Great content needs great imagery. Make sure you check out her site at debragrantphotography.co.uk.