10 Step Guide: How to Create Valuable Website Content for Users

Over 90% of companies use website content as part of their digital marketing strategy. Content marketing costs on average 62% less and generates approximately three times the volume of leads compared to common marketing techniques. It is highly used by B2B and B2C companies as an ideal way to engage customers with brands. But what determines quality content and how do you engage your readers?

10 steps to creating valuable website content

1. Keyword research

Start with using SEO keyword research to identify the specific keywords your users will be typing into their search engine. Look for long tail keywords as these usually have higher buyer intent and less competition, so your chances of increasing rankings are higher. By optimising content for these keywords, you will boost your website in the ideal location for your audience to find you.

2. Buyer Personas

Your website content needs to reflect the interests of your customer. Getting down to the details of your buyer personas and their purchasing journey will help you understand how to structure and tailor your content to what they would find valuable. Researching and understanding buyer personas are useful in making decisions for user experience and customer journey strategies.

3. Create an eye-catching headline

Your headline should target your buyer persona and the stage of their journey in an engaging and enticing way. It should set a clear expectation for your readers of what’s to come in the post and should be specific to target the right audience. Don’t forget to optimise it with your chosen keyword, keeping it under 70 characters means it won’t get cut off in search engines and has a higher chance of being shared on social platforms.

4. Customer Journey Strategy

Organise the customer journey, otherwise known as the “marketing funnel” and apply this strategy to your content calendar. The customer journey should include three levels: Awareness, consideration and decision. Sequence your content so that each piece is guiding them to the place you want them to go.

5. Stay true to your brand

Authenticity is key to a trust-filled relationship between you and your buyer. It also speaks volumes for helping you stand out from the crowd. Think carefully about the tone of voice and brand message you think that your customers would resonate with and use this as a guideline to assist you in writing your website content.

6. Visual Imagery

Research suggests 65% of the population are visual learners. So it makes sense to include visual imagery such as photos, videos and infographics within your content. This also creates a more entertaining and engaging experience for the user and helps to structure and break up long blocks of text.

7. Search engine optimisation

Website content needs to be in line with the quality raters guidelines to gain higher rankings in the search results, with Google providing users with relevant and higher quality content. Conducting site audits, creating title tags, meta descriptions, optimising headers, implementing internal linking and ensuring the keyword density in the body text is appropriate will increase visibility, rankings and the overall quality of your content.    

8. Mobile Friendliness

The amount of users viewing websites on mobile is increasing every year, with over 50% of global traffic coming from mobile phones. AMP, which is the acronym for Accelerated Mobile Pages, gives website owners the ability to create their pages as AMP links. This is used to increase loading speed and optimise their pages for mobile views. You only have a few seconds for your web page to load before your users will leave the website, so keep this in mind for all of your website content.

9. Consistency

Posting regular website content is essential to your content marketing strategy. Consistency can help establish credibility, building your brand as a thought leader and improve website traffic and search visibility. Regularly updated content demonstrates importance and the production of valuable information to search engines. You should aim to update your website content once or twice a week with new blog posts to increase traffic and engagement.

10. Social media sharing

Just as you would to your email database, update your followers on all of your social media platforms to remind them of your brand. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram are all popular places to share your new content. Make sure to share your content on social platforms regularly to maintain a community around your brand, increase awareness and prompt post engagement.

Like what you have read here so far? Find more helpful information on digital marketing trends and tips on the Whitehat Agency blog or get in touch with one of our experts.