Why Content Is King - Getting Content For Your Web Site
Have you been to a website that was filled with nothing but banners? Did you go back or bookmark it? Probably not. Chance are you probably spent a few minutes there and left, spending time on a website somewhere else more interesting.
What about a website that was nothing but a sales pitch for a product you are not sure you need from a person you don't know very well or a company you don't know that can be trusted? Do you buy the first time you see the ad? Probably not. And if there was nothing other than a sales pitch, you probably will not go back.
What websites do you bookmark and visit time after time? Websites that make it big in the loyal traffic department are those with fresh content, niche sites, interactive websites and sometimes a combination of them all.
Think about it, when you want to play computer games, you know very well the names Uproar World Winner and even on this site. You know they have great content, interactive games, and specialize in the niche of the games and things related to the games. Chances are if you like such sites, you will bookmark them and go back and perhaps one day buy from them or support their sponsors which helps them pay to keep the site going.
If you want to get steady, consistent traffic to your website find your niche. Who are you trying to target? This is a standard business practice. As you would in any offline business, you have to figure out who is your potential customer and what it would take to reach them.
This particular website of mine is a virtual library where you can access all sorts of information. My target is primarily students, homeschoolers, and those with a thirst for knowledge (bookworms, "geeks", brainiacs...) While I know there are other types of reference points around the Internet, my niche is for those who think in different ways, those who want to make research fun and a bit more personal, those who are a bit more independent in nature who only need some encouragement who are mostly students, parents, and would be self-employed people.
What will be the target audience for your website? If you are selling fishing supplies, you need to find out what type of people fish and what they would be interested in. For instance, great places to fish, water temperatures around the world, bait and what works best for certain fishes, classifying fish, boats used for fishing, making your own hook, lines and sinkers... the possibilities of topics are endless. Find your niche within the interests of your target audience of potential customers.
When you figure out your niche, write articles pertaining to your niche and update it on a regular basis. Give them a reason to want to come back and see something different on your website. Be sure to start a newsletter for your site and invite visitors to subscribe to keep up with your site. This is your great opportunity to invite them back to see the fresh content!
One place to get constantly updated content is by signing up with services that offer this type of service. You only place their code on your site where it is appropriate to merge in with your own settings. It is automatically updated. Yellow Brix offers news from around the world and cartoons. Gibbleguts has cartoons. Gibbleguts is a free service, but Yellow Brix is available by subscription only.
An easy method for getting fresh content is to approach web sites with similar themes that have content. No, you are not going to steal their content. You need to ask them if they can write a few articles for your web site and in exchange you will give them a link to their web site. It is a win-win situation. You get free content and they get more weight to their Google rank. If they write articles to your site, ask them to put a link somewhere on their site that their articles are featured on your website. They may ask you to do the same for them one day.
Another great way to add fun to your website is to make it interactive. Games, polls, surveys, message boards, chat rooms and such will let your visitor feel as if they were an important part of your site. If they feel important, they will want to come back.
Of recent popularity is the blog and RSS feeds which can easily be added to your website. Discussion boards are also a great feature if you have time to monitor them, but they are notorious for hackers with nothing better to do but screw it up just because they can. Same with guestbooks. I used to have both and decided to discontinue them due to abuse.
Your website does not need to be huge to be attractive to a surfer, just interesting. Only you can figure out what you want to put up on your site. Just follow your individuality when creating your website, you want to stick out from the crowd, not look like everyone else.
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