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Of all the important aspects of website design and search engine optimization techniques an increasing amount of quality content ranks head and shoulders above any others. Site visitors, search engines and site owners want exactly the same thing in this regard – lots of quality information, well presented and kept current..
Another bonus of having a great deal of interesting content is that it makes your site “sticky”, meaning the reader is more likely to stay on your site. The longer a visitor stays on your site, the more likely they are to buy something or contact you.
Content also gives your site and therefore your business more credibility. You become known as a source of information, an opinion leader in your field. People are more likely to recommend your site to their friends. Search engines will consider your site more valuable, which is likely to translate into higher rankings. You have more potential pages to rank in the search engines, which alone could create more business.
As an interesting test, type a search term into Yahoo or Google. Take a look at the listings that appear in the portion in the middle of the page. Notice how many of these don’t just go to the home page of a site. The Internet is a giant collection of catalogued pages – not just websites. So you can see the more pages you have the better your chances of getting ranked highly for the search terms you want.
And remember that content does not have to be page after page filled with writing. There’s a reason that the interface used to look at websites is called a browser and not a “reader” or “studier” or “researcher”. People like to browse. They scan pages picking out parts in which they’re interested. They flit from one thing to another, frequently having several windows open at the same time. Perhaps they’ll check out your most recent blog post about dogs. This might remind them on a funny video they meant to send along to a friend. Perhaps they’ll even shoot the address over your blog over to that same friend who’s interested in puppies.
Most content on the Internet tends to be viewed in spurts. Therefore it doesn’t hurt if some of the content on your site takes the form of video or lists or pictures. If you are selling products this becomes easy. Show pictures of the items for sale. Let people click on the image to pop up a bigger image. Show things that are unique and interesting, things that people will want to share with their friends. You might be surprised at how easy it is to get people to send links to others. We all want to show our friends something we feel will interest, help or just amuse. Put out that type of content. Not always. But at least once in a while.
In order to get any message across to any public you first have to get their attention. Then you have to maintain their interest long enough to get the message across. This is why large companies spend a fortune an consumer research and advertising. In our current society with texting and cell phones and social media, videos not to mention TV and radio capturing the public’s attention can be quite difficult. But quality content about a subject you know people are interested presented n a way that’s easy to read and assimilate could do the trick.
It’s interesting that when you look at Facebook you can see people often write interesting and informative little entries on their page. I the person has many, many Facebook friends these can get a few comments and “likes”. But see someone post a picture of a goat at sunset eating a cactus flower and the comments and “likes” come flooding in. I’ve seen a picture of a t-shirt with a funny quote get dozens of comments with people sharing it left and right while a thoughtful comment about current affairs goes unnoticed.
I think we need to keep that in mind when creating content for blogs and websites. Make is short. Make it interesting. Make it easy to assimilate and to share.
There are people out there and they’re looking for an outstanding variety of information and of amusement. And just think of Nora the piano playing cat. She started out as a little home video posted to YouTube. She’s now been mentioned on several television shows and a radio ad. Her video has at this writing over 25 million views.