2015 Website SEO Guide for Businesses (2015)

Content Creation

If you love talking about your product or service, then content creation should come to you fairly easily. It’s all about writing down your knowledge and putting it on your website.

Put it this way, Google and search engines in general love content, the more content your website has, the better. But the content must be well written and concise. More content will equal to more visitors over time.

Content can be created in the form of text, images or videos.

A lack of human resources in your business can hinder content creation, but don’t let that stop you. You can outsource your content creation or your can hire someone if you can afford it, to do it for you. Maybe some of your current members of staff can write for your website in their spare time for a cash incentive.

Every website owner knows it can be difficult to continually think up ideas on what to write about. One of the best and easiest ways to get this content is to write down questions that your customers have asked you in the past.

You can then write a post about the questions, answering in detail what the customer needs to know and how they can resolve the problem. If it means they have to hire you for your services or buy your product to solve their problem, then it’s all the better for you and for your customer.

Create content that your customers are interested in.

For example, if you sell bicycles, write about local cycling events, add content about some great cycling trails that your customers can take their new bikes out on. Provide links to local cycling clubs, you could even advertise your bicycle business on cycling club websites.

For each bike that you sell, write an in depth review about who the bicycle is best suited for, what it’s good at and maybe more importantly what it’s not good at and then point the customer to a bicycle that may suit them better.

All of this content that you’ve created will be geared towards cyclists. Always keep your customer in mind when writing. If you’ve been in business for a lot of years, you may forget how difficult the most simplest of things can seem to a novice, so don’t be afraid to explain things in more detail, even if you think most people will already know the answer. The same applies to any product or service.

Give your customers free advice, again, back to the flower sellers example, tell them which flowers are suitable for different occasions, write it down, post it on your website and make sure you tell your customers that come into your shop to check out your website for advice.

Instead of creating one long blog post, break it down into smaller articles, add videos and images to show your customers exactly what you mean. They will show their appreciation by coming back to your website and recommending your website to others through word of mouth and on social media.

Take advantage of online services such as Google Alerts. Create alerts that are relevant to your business and write about what’s happening. Put your own spin on it.

Providing great content online will not be going away anytime soon, since the birth of the internet it’s always been about content.

If you are providing great content, you are showing authority. You are showing search engines and your customers that you thoroughly understand the products and services your company is providing.

Video content is continuing to increase. If you already have a Facebook page, you’ll notice that when you share a video, it gets a lot more impressions than just regular text. In 2015 Twitter will be focusing more on video content, more like Youtube and less like other social networks like Vine.

In 2015 Google is also going to focus more on Content Quality, meaning that their algorithms will be updated to show the best quality content on their front page. Sites with low quality content will be dropping off the radar and this has already started in 2014, specifically with Insurance Company websites. In 2013 the internet was flooded with low quality car insurance affiliate websites, who didn’t actually sell insurance services, but provided affiliate links to real insurance companies.

The affiliate insurance websites are all but gone from the front pages of Google and are now way down the list. They have been replaced with real companies who have high quality insurance websites.

So if you are frustrated that low quality websites in your industry are at the top of Google right now, be rest assured that by the end of 2015 Google is going to do away with a lot more of these low quality content sites that offer nothing to the user and they will be replaced by real companies like yours, providing your website has high quality content that is relevant to what the potential customer is searching for.

Remember, whatever your customers respond to when they come into your bricks and mortar store, they’re going to respond to the same sort of thing online.

Your product or service may be able to be used in unique or creative ways that are obvious to you, but not so obvious to your customers. Write about it in detail, show the customer how they can get more from your product and advise them what they can do to get the most out of it.

Debunk myths about your products.

If you go to trade shows, write content about the trade shows that you will be at. Tell them what they can do and other places close by. For example if you have a favourite restaurant close by to where the event is taking place, tell them to check it out!

Talk to your product suppliers, ask them about what new products are coming out in the future. If you are writing about it first, then chances are your website is going to be above the rest.

Local charity events or fundraisers can be great for your business to sponsor or attend. When you are attending the fundraiser, take pictures, write down notes, then write about it and post it on your website.

If your company has been around for a long time, dig up some old photographs and make this into great content for your website. Tell customers when the photo was taken, show them that your business has been around for a long time and tell them how you are keeping ahead of industry standards and why your business is still going strong while others have failed.

If one of your employees is working on a new product or service, get them to document it and take photographs. Post these to your website and social media pages and show your customers what’s happening inside your company.

Don’t be afraid to make predictions about what is going to happen in your industry in the months or years to come. Show customers that you believe in yourself and that you believe in the abilities of your staff and your business.

Create how to videos, but don’t just post them to Youtube, post them to your website along with some text instructions. Some people prefer reading than watching videos or looking at pictures. This is one are where you can please everyone and provide excellent content.

Think about non competitive, yet related products that your customers may find helpful.

It always helps to stay in touch with what’s happening in your local area by talking to people and by reading the local newspaper. Get ideas from journalists and if you can, get in touch with these journalists and ask them if there’s any way you can work together. Journalists are always on the lookout for good local businesses that they can write about, it helps make their job easier and it’s a great way to show customers that you know what you are talking about.

Gather email addresses from all your customers and send out a monthly or weekly email providing them with information with what’s going on in your company. Provide links to your blog, website, social media profiles and offer a discount on certain products or services that you want to promote. Provide something helpful. Don’t get discouraged by the odd person here and there that will not want to receive your emails. Most people will want to read about what you have to say, especially if you are helping them out.

Something I talked about previously was keyword research. Keyword research can also be used to spark your creativity for content creation. Using Google Predictive Search, you can type in keywords relative to your business and it will help you come up with ideas on what to write about.