There are many ways to use Web content to keep your customers happy, increase revenues, and improve the traffic your Web site gets each day. Use these techniques and you’ll see a difference in your business.

1. THE “ABOUT US” PAGE
Having an “About Us” page on your Web site can really increase your credibility with potential customers. If a prospect visits your Web site and can’t get a good idea of how you do business, they may choose to make their purchases somewhere else. Whether you sell products or provide professional services, having an “About Us” page helps you tell the world about your company and everything you have to offer.

2. PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS
If you sell products from your Web site, you’ll need excellent descriptions so your customers can get a good idea of what they will be purchasing. Which description sounds more helpful, “Red shirt, size large” or “100% cotton shirt in red, blue, white, black, and yellow. White piping available on the sleeves and collar with a front pocket for added convenience; available in sizes XS to XXXL.”? The more descriptive you are in your product descriptions, the better the chance that someone will buy from you.

3. SERVICE DESCRIPTIONS
Have you ever been to a service-based Web site and you just couldn’t figure out what the business owners DID for their customers? In specific niches, some industry jargon might be expected, but describing your services so that everyone can understand them makes better business sense. Instead of simply listing your services, use your service titles as headers and insert a description of each service underneath the appropriate heading. You can also make a list on your main services page and have links to a description of each individual service.

4. BECOMING A VISITOR RESOURCE
Some people are looking to buy products and services when they are surfing the Web, but many are often looking for more information about a topic before they commit to making any kind of purchase. Having a Web site that only promotes your products and services isn’t the best way to serve your customers. Add articles to your site that relate to your products and services but aren’t outright advertisements for your company. A good example of this type of article would be a piece on using pillows to decorate your living room used on a home furnishing Web site. The article is useful for visitors, but still ties in with the products and services being promoted on the rest of the Web site. You can have anywhere from 10 to 1,000 articles on your site to help your business become known as a trusted resource for information.

5. IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS
These days, users want information as fast as possible. If you place images on your Web site, they can take a long time to load and make your visitors look elsewhere for their information. But, if you use alt-image tags to describe your images, these tags will load faster so your visitors get what they’re looking for. You can write short descriptions of your images and use keywords if you want to optimize your Web site. So, alt-image tags really pack a punch when you use them on your Web site.

6. OPTIMIZING YOUR WEBSITE
You may have heard the terms “search engine optimization” or “keyword-rich content” floating around while you were doing Web research. Optimizing your Web site is a way of helping visitors find you by improving your rankings in the search engines. You can use keyword-rich Web content to help visitors find your site so they can be exposed to the products and services you provide.

7. PRESS RELEASES
Press releases are a great form of content that can be used to generate publicity and traffic for your Web site and get your business the recognition it deserves. You can use your press releases on your site and by distributing them to online newswires so they can be picked up by those who are interested in your news. Make sure you make the releases interesting and consider your audience when distributing them. Just because you think your products and services are interesting doesn’t mean other people will. Tie your news in with local events or announce partnerships with other businesses or charities.

Generally, website owners are overly concentrated on getting the best graphical layout for their site at all costs, but few go further to work on SEO and usability and even fewer focus on creating website content. How can you create a content that will convert? Read on.

There are a couple of things to consider before writing your site content:

* your customers’ interests and needs - why do they buy your product/service?
* targeted keywords - which keywords drive the most sales/profit/sign-ups?
* the intent of the content: is it to inform your visitors or to sell?

Let’s see why those aspects are important.

FOCUS ON THE CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS
Obviously, to make your site content efficient you’ll need to provide value to your visitors. To provide value to your customers, you need to know their needs to tell them how your product or service can make their life better. This means that you’ll need to focus on the benefits of your product or service, not on the features. The more benefits you describe, the more you connect your content to the needs, interests and reasons people buy from you, the more efficient your website content will be.

Another moment here is to focus on your customers, not you. You need to write about the customers, their needs, thoughts and emotions, not your product or your company. No matter how well you may write, you need to focus on your customers in your content.

TARGET THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
Another aspect of talking the same language with your customers is the words you use. To know that, you’ll need to do some keyword research to understand how your customers think and how they relate to your product. When writing website content, you’ll be aware what keywords to use.

PICK THE RIGHT TONE
And yet another important factor to remember is the tone of your content. The content tone depends on how well you know your customers, how you want to position yourself and the purpose the content services: whether you need to prompt your customers to do something or you simply need to inform them of something.

Developing a fitting tone will make your content more compelling and more pleasant to read.

HOW TO WRITE?
Now that we know what to think about before writing the content, let’s actually see how to do it.

First of all, you need to focus on the benefits of your product or service that make your customer buy from you. To do this, you’ll need to empathize with your clients and think like them. Write how they can improve their lives with your help.

Secondly, you need to write naturally, just as you would talk to your friend who suddenly started considering your product or service. Then, after the copy (content) is written, you may add relevant keywords in it by replacing pronouns, such as ‘it, he, she’ with a more descriptive word as well as using synonyms. The point here is to still sound naturally (with readable content) and use keywords as well.

Of course, you’d rather stick to two or three (at most) synonyms throughout the piece, because you need to target the least possible amount of keyword phrases in it (that’s another SEO story, though).

Thirdly, the tone of your content can make a huge difference. If your aim is to inform your site visitors, you may as well pick a less formal tone, add sparks of humour here and there, etc. If your site presents formal information, you may as well be more reserved.

Usually, an informative tone, with a bit of personality and humour may be best for most sites, as it represents the tone people are familiar with in the real life and they can relate to the content author more closely.

In essence, the most important thing you can think of when writing your content is the value you provide to your site visitors. Your content is the highway that you can do that so it is in your best interest so create the most pleasant experience for your site visitors with.

Source: Improve the Web

Red Cow Marketing & Technologies is pleased to announce the launch of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce’s new Fredericton Physician Recruitment Initiative website; Go Fredericton. The website utilizes our myBusinessAdmin software which enables the Chamber to update and edit the website at their own leisure without added costs.

About Go Fredericton
In August of 2008 the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce launched its Fredericton Physician Recruitment Initiative, a community-based project intended to complement the existing efforts of the Regional Health Authority and the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital.

The decision to form the initiative arose from discussions with Chamber members, who expressed concern over the ability to recruit skilled workers to a community experiencing a physician shortage, who pointed out that access to health care is a key requirement for companies looking to the city as a place to do business, and who noted that immigrants are unlikely to choose to relocate to, or remain in, a community that cannot offer them access to primary health care. These discussions made it apparent that the physician shortage had the potential to affect more than just a small group of people — it could create a serious human resources challenge, hinder economic development efforts, and prevent the province from achieving its population growth targets.

Website
http://www.gofredericton.ca

Red Cow Marketing & Technologies is pleased to announce the addition of Andrew Carr to our team as our new Fredericton based Product Specialist. Andrew has been in the sales game for years; spending 9 years at Cox Electronics & Communications in Fredericton and more recently at Future Shop. He’s bringing years of experience with customers to the plate and combined with his fantastic personality, he’ll be a great addition to our team.

Want to get in touch with Andrew? Here’s how…

Phone: 506 461 0712
E-Mail: andrew@redcow.ca