Effective website content is key for any small businesses website. Content includes all the text, images, videos, etc. on your site. Your content helps tell your business’s story and answer your visitors’ questions.
Is your content up to the task, or is it indeed of a refresh?
Here in Part 2 of our blog series on updating your small business website, we explore ways to tell if your content is outdated. If you missed it, check out Part 1, which is all about design and visual elements.
Content
1. Incorrect or outdated information, especially contact information
According to a study from KoMarketing, 86% of visitors to your websites look for information on your products or services and 65% of visitors want to see your contact information. That’s a lot of potential customers you’re misinforming if your website content isn’t up to date.
Your contact information is especially critical, not only because your customers are looking for it, but because search engines are too. Google’s local search engine rankings rely heavily on your business name, address, and phone number. If there are errors or inconsistencies in your contact information, it may jeopardize your searching rankings.
Obviously, you should update your website if your offices moved or your have a new product, but there are some other less-obvious ways that your information may be outdated. References to specific events, dates, or statistics are easy to overlook, but can be a big sign that your content is aging. Or, perhaps you’re in a fast moving industry that is constantly evolving with new trends and technologies. If the content on your website isn’t up-to-date with the latest advancements in your industry, your customers may doubt your expertise.
2. It contains unused pages or features
You know that news page where you uploaded three articles in 2011, and you haven’t touched it since? The information may still be correct, but pages collecting digital cobwebs are an obvious sign that your website needs some attention.
Don’t worry, though, you’re not alone. Even the NBA has pages collecting dust, like this one, dedicated to Michael Jordan. The season highlights that stop in 1998 are a dead giveaway!
Unused pages can also hinder user navigation, making it harder for visitors to quickly find current information. Simplicity is key to effective navigation, and outdated pages only divert traffic away from more important areas of your website. We’ll explore this idea more in Part 3 on User Experience.
3. It hasn’t been updated in forever
Although there is no definite rule for how long a website can last, three years is essentially forever in Internet terms. If you’ve barely touched your website in multiple years, it’s likely reaching the end of its lifespan.
But rather than viewing a website as a “design-it-and-forget it” thing, think of it more like a car: what makes both last longer is regular maintenance. Just like your car needs inspections, oil changes and tune-ups, a healthy website should be regularly changed and updated with fresh information, products, news releases, blog posts, and more.
Fresh content not only keeps your visitors coming back, it can also boost your search rankings. Google has a “freshness factor” which affects rankings based on when a page was published, how often content changes and how substantial the changes are.
4. Your content doesn’t GRAB ATTENTION
You may have heard that the average human has a shorter attention span than a goldfish (around 8 seconds). While that may be an over-generalization, research has still shown that you have a very short time to engage your web visitors.
Your content needs to give visitors a reason to stay on your website. The first step is to make sure your homepage, which is the primary landing page for your website, is drawing in your visitors. Your homepage should immediately answer a few basic questions for your visitors:
- What do you do?
- Why should I care?
- What do you want me to do next?
Take this example from one of our small business clients:
First, it’s immediately obvious that this is a law firm, with references to experienced lawyers, the clear buttons under “Our Practice Areas,” and main courthouse image. The header copy answers the “why should I care?” question by highlighting the firm’s focus on results and their generations of experience. Lastly, the bold buttons tell visitors what they should be doing next – either reading more, or contacting an attorney. This leads us to our final point…
5. Missing or unclear calls to action
Your small business website should be generating results for your business: engaged followers, leads, and sales, but it isn’t going to drive anything if your visitors don’t know what to do next. A clear call to action (CTA) tells visitors the next step to take in your sales process, which might be signing up for a newsletter, downloading a report, attending an event, or requesting a consultation.
This CTA has a clear message, benefit and has supporting bullets to counter objections (Source: Copyblogger)
Whatever the CTA, make sure it visually grabs the visitor’s attention. Boldly colored buttons help draw attention and clicks. Next, craft a simple, compelling offer that demonstrates a clear value. Here, “End My Scheduling Hassles” identifies a clear problem and promises a result. Finally, include supporting copy around the button to reinforce value or counter objections. This may not always be required, but the bigger the “ask” in the CTA (for instance, anything that requires a purchase), the more incentive you’ll need to provide before users click.
Is your website content effective?
Effective website content tells a compelling story about your business that helps draw in visitors and generate results for your business. If your content is outdated, then it’s not telling the right story, or the best story, and it’s probably time for an update.
On to Part 3: User Experience. Or catch the rest of the series: Part 1: Design and Part 4: Technical.
