Developing Website Content for People and Search Engines

Planning your website is essential. Define a website objective before you begin and you will be well on your way to making a website with relevant content that is displayed in a way that will entice users to read it, not get confused and leave.

Writing website content is arguably the most difficult and time consuming stage of developing a website. It is also without a doubt the most important element in a website. Well worded content will inform your visitors of what you sell, where you are, why they should choose you and how they can contact you. A website with well developed and thought through content is likely to deliver increased traffic and a greater online and offline reputation. A website with flimsy and meaningless content however, may be viewed as un-trustworthy and irrelevant.

Website content should be relevent and to the point

Content is incredibly important when it comes to search engines, without well developed content, a search engine will lose your website amongst the mass of websites within your industry, if the content on your website does not make sense, or is irrelevant to your companies products, services, or industry, then how will you be found by the customers looking for you? Plan your content the same way you did when planning your website, or even your original business plan, don't just rush in an type meaningless filler content just to make your website look finished, or to try and trick search engines into ranking your site higher. A little tip, having a new page per subject is a good idea, so maybe have a new page for each service you provide, or a new page per product.

Be direct and to the point when writing, people don't enjoy spending time reading waffle, they want to find out everything they need to know as soon as possible. Content should also be professional, it should not contain spelling or grammatical errors, these mistakes can reflect badly on your companys image. If you don't have the time, or aren't confident enough to write your own website content, it is well worth investing in the services of a professional copywriter.

Write website content for people, not for search engines

A crucial point to consider when developing website content is to never try and cheat search engines, they are much smarter than you and I and they have every trick in the book covered so whatever you may be thinking about doing to 'trick' google, avoid it, you should develop your content for your customers, if its done right, search engines will reward you.

Do not attempt to just fill your content with meaningless keywords and don't repeat the same words over and over again unless it is relevant to what you are writing about.

Avoid making pages primarily designed for search engines, this annoys visitors and does not improve the standing of your website. Search engines are a lot like people, they read content and if it's relevant to the topic they are looking for, they will be interested in it, if the content is meaningless and full of the same words, they will pass it by without a second thought, so do as the title suggests, write content for people, not search engines, and you will be rewarded in the end by a higher ranking website and happier visitors.

What happens after you have written your website content?

Website content gets old very quickly, for people and search engines to remain interested in your website, they need new and inviting content on a regular basis. A content management system (CMS) is the fastest and easiest way to upload new content to your website, this also removes the need for the person writing the content to have skills in HTML and programming, it is simply a case of writing the new content, much like you would in Word. Remember, if a newspaper had the same content everyday, why would people read it, your website is like an advertiement, it needs to always interest your visiters, and always offer them something new.

Writing website content is the hardest and most important stage of building your website. Coconut Graphics recommends using our text editing and copywriting services, but if you plan to write and edit your own content, consider the pointers below: