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Make Your Website A High-Converting Sales Tool With A Content Plan

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Often when a proprietor comes to our door all they claim to want is a ‘company brochure online’ website – you know… home page, about us, our difference, services, contact us.
And looking around at all the other small business websites, it’s fairly obvious that’s what all
the hens in the henhouse are doing. Clearly, replicating everyone else means that your website will not be attractive to many guests, and not be a good lead conversion tool at all. It will be just another company brochure among an ocean of brochures.

But, there is another way. It involves using some direct marketing principles, minus the hype.
But first, we need a bold and detailed plan.

Innovative business owners might realise they need a Website Content Plan to get an effective website up and running. This plan should involve the professionals you will use for
your website (i.e. copywriter, website developer, SEO consultant, or all-in-one service).
Developing a Content Plan means that instead of the manager coming up with the brief and
outsourcing its execution, he or she is open to suggestions and ideas in order to get their main goals achieved.

If the owner/manager can put across their main goals for the website, e.g. to attract targeted
prospects and be an educational portal, then the content professionals will have more freedom to suggest what is needed to achieve those goals.

The primary thing I want you to remember is be patient. A website is a long-term proposition,
and it could take anywhere from three months up to one year to get the real results you need, such as 100 hits per day and 5 calls, etc.

Ten Steps to Planning Content

1. Describe your larger business goals and smaller website objectives.

2. Create a deadline, sure, but seek help from your outsourcers with the time frames.

3. Make sure web statistics (e.g. Google Analytics) are used to measure visitor patterns, and set some goals for conversion using the program.

4. See things from a visitor’s perspective. Try to get every colleague to look at it. Get your
copywriter to research your target market and industry – expect to pay for this research. It’s
well worth it.

Then ask your web developer to explain how they can structure a flowing user interface, from the first step of capturing attention, to finding out about your business, your partners/staff, your product specifics, then making it easy to contact you. Having the most important information on the top level is also essential. Remember that people can land in from anywhere. You may want some web pages not visited in searches, so tell your developer about these.  

5. Go over the new research, along with your current marketing literature, and see if you can draw any conclusions as to what problems does your offering solve. What are some rare or funny applications you’ve heard about, what current topical issue relates most to your clients’ interests (NOT just your interests). This work is what a premium copywriter can do – if you allow them!

6. Ensure copy is user oriented first, but utilise relevant keywords, since it costs no more.
After research with online tools, combined with your specialist knowhow, set two-three
keyword phrases to integrate in the home page copy. I believe up to six keywords per site
would be plenty. Rather than stuff a site with keywords, keep it under 2% of body copy
(excluding tags|metatags). We don’t want to be banned by the search engines.

7. The copywriter should have enough info now to go ahead with writing the content. Ensure
the plan mentions the need for a Page Title, Description, Headline, Subheads and 200-300
words in the body. (There are so many reasons for this I can’t go into all of them, but rest
assured it all helps with your attractor factor).

8. Plan the number of keyword-rich articles to be written over a longish time frame… if they’re good, varied, and uploaded to popular article sites, this should grow your Google PR (PageRank) as well as add a neverending trickle of internet visitors. Also use a smaller variation on your blog.

9. Don’t forget to plan for updates to your site. If a designer is charging you a hefty hosting
fee, make sure you use it and send him or her some new material to insert every two-three
months at the very minimum. Before this, have a look at your website analytics program to
see which pages are capturing people’s interest, and which are barely looked at (called visitor tracking). If you contract an SEO consultant, they could do this for you.

Additionally, you can test different headlines or content with Website Optimiser (e.g. A/B split tests), different Adwords ads with related landing pages, etc. But testing is only for people who want to spend their money wisely.

Content Elements That Pack a Punch

Borrowed from direct marketing, our elements are:  Page Title, Credibility Builder, Headline,
Subheads, Proof.

Page Title is important because it ends up in the bookmark, it shows in the browser,
and it appears in bold on Google’s search results. Make it key phrase rich, but make it compelling too. Similarly with the meta description – I call it a mini ad for your site.

A Credibility Builder is optional; this applies to sales {pages|letters} you have online
and lets the audience know the author’s expertise and shows a credible claim to fame. It can
be placed in the top row of body, above the headline.

Headline – You might not yet understand how powerful a headline is, because you
think your website is serious business, not advertising, so it doesn’t need one. Sure?  I do a
search for ‘Financial Planners Brisbane’… I get 264,000 results. Every one of the first ten says “financial planning” somewhere in its title. So I proceed to click on each. The majority look like they’ve had search engine optimisation, but they’re dull. The one that attracts me the most (no.7) has a heading “Plan Well. Invest Well. Live Well”… hey, that’s what I the prospect wish to do. Immediately they’ve interested me, with a list of seven reasons why they provide good value
to the client. (They are called ‘A Clear Direction Financial Planning’)

Subheads – these help the reader scan and provide another chance to put in a keyword.

Proof – Testimonials in smaller print on the sidebar is a great idea.  It’s OK to shorten lengthy ones if you don’t change the meaning. If you’re a start-up business, then provide some acknowledgement of any degree, trade quals, awards, memberships, etc. Don’t forget testimonials outside of your website – you can encourage these by rewarding clients for giving their feedback on your listing on Google Maps. Sounds like a bribe? Well, you can make it subtle.

So that’s it, more than just a Website Design Plan, but a Content Plan to make your website a super-effective marketing tool.

Jennifer Lancaster is the SEO copywriter, while her partner is the freelance web designer at
Red Planet Design, and together they provide a solution for small businesses who want to
dominate their market. Australian based.


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