In today’s online world, web content writers have more on their hands. They need to work around search engine rankings and social media posts with character limits, all the while creating informative, helpful blogs and posts. Gone are the days where all it took was a URL, fancy Flash graphics, and an expensive advertising campaign to temporarily boost traffic. If you’re a web content writer looking to improve your work for 2016, this checklist should help you out:

Google SEOGet found:

A great website isn’t so great if no one visits it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an absolute must-have to any website strategy, but it takes hard work and consistency when aiming for the top spot.

  • Build Inbound Links – Off-Page SEO is about building inbound links, essentially getting other quality websites to link back to you. Search engines call this authority or “link juice.” The more inbound links you have, the more important your site must be, thus the higher you’ll rank.
  • On-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – While off-page SEO is hugely important, we can’t forget about on-page SEO. This consists of placing your most important keywords within the content elements of your actual pages. These on-page elements include Headlines, Sub-headlines, Body Content, Image Tags, and Links.
  • Title Tag & Meta Tags – A Meta Tag is a line of code that is contained in the background of a web page. Search engines look at meta tags to learn more about what the page is about. Meta tags don’t quite have the level of SEO importance as they used to but are still very important.
  • XML Sitemaps – The general incentive behind an XML sitemap is to help search engine crawlers (or “spiders”) sift through your pages more efficiently. An XML sitemap is simply an .xml file containing a listing of all your pages and when they were updated.
  • 301 Redirects – In addition to keeping visitors happy when navigating your website, permanent 301 redirects are also important for SEO. When a user can’t find a new page, nor can a search engine, and you’ll lose any SEO status the old page once had. To keep the SEO juice following to new pages, set up a 301 redirect for pages that have been moved so search engines know where to find it. 

Design & Usability:

It depends on the industry, but most websites have a 30-60% bounce rate on average. This means a large majority of web traffic entering your website leaves without navigating to any other pages. And many times they may never come back.

  • First Impression – Your website represents who you are and what you offer. When people see it for the first time they’re thinking: Is this site credible? Is it trustworthy? Is this a professional company? Is this company stable? Does this site make me feel welcome? Am I in the right place?
  • Main Consistency – It’s best to keep elements on your site fairly consistent from page-to page. Elements include colors, sizes, layout and placement of those elements. Your site needs to have a good flow from page to page. This means colors are primarily the same as well as fonts and layout structure. Navigation should remain in the same location of your layout throughout your website.
  • Using the Right Images – Images can be a powerful element to any website but you need to use them wisely. Take care to place meaningful images on your site. Every image is transmitting a subconscious message to your audience and sometimes the result is different from what might expect.
  • Navigation – Perhaps one of the biggest factors to keep visitors on your website is having a good, solid navigation system that supports all search preferences. In fact, more than three-quarters of survey respondents from a recent HubSpot study say that the most important element in website design is ease in finding information.
  • Flash and Animation – Flash animation can grab someone’s attention, yes, but it can also distract people from staying on your site. Not only are mobile applications lacking the capability to view flash animation but many people simply don’t want to be bothered with unexpected noises and animations. Keep the animation to a minimum and only use when necessary.
  • Accessibility – Make sure that anyone visiting your website can view it no matter what browser or application they are using. In order to gain significant traffic, your site needs to be compatible with multiple browsers and devices. With growth in mobile phones and tablet devices, people are surfing the internet more than ever before. Make sure to get some of those views by allowing everyone to view your site, no matter what kind of system they run or which browser they use. 

content is kingContent:

Content is one of the most important aspects of any website. With the rise of inbound marketing, content has become front and center in the minds of marketers. It is what search engines and people are looking for. It’s what drives visitors to your site and turns prospects into leads. (Read our blog about some of the problems that web content writers may have.)

  • Messaging – There are four basic questions you need to ask yourself regarding the content of your website: Will people know what I do within seconds? Will they understand what page they’re on and what it’s about? Will they know what to do next? Why should they buy/subscribe/download from this site instead of from someone else?
  • Educate and Offer Value – Even though the purpose of a corporate website is to provide information about your products and services, not everyone is ready to buy when they first hit your site. Second, remember it’s not all about you. What’s in it for them?
  • Importance of Quality – Everyone knows having a lot of content is a good thing, but in the days where search engines are getting smarter and buyers are becoming more selective, quality content is truly king.
  • Avoid Gobbledygook – A professional image is necessary but you still want to avoid the dreaded corporate gobbledygook. Avoid words such as: next generation, flexible, robust, scalable, easy to use, cutting edge, ground breaking, best of breed, mission critical.
  • Be Clear and Not Clever – For years, advertising has tricked us into thinking that catchy and creative headlines and phrases work well at capturing our attention. They might have for a while but not so much anymore. As consumers we are tired of advertising trickery, marketing cliques, and surreptitious methods of persuasion. We don’t want to be lied to, gimmicked, or fooled. We just want the truth!
  • Blogging – Blogging is without a doubt one of the most important assets to any inbound marketing strategy and it’s a perfect complement to your website.
  • Make Content Shareable and Social – Social media websites have seen and exponential growth in the past decade and continue to grow larger every day. Often times people will “Like” a post, product, or blog entry, causing all of their friends to see what they like and even provide them with a link to find it themselves.
  • Use Multiple Forms of Content – Content is more than just the written word. Media and utilities are excellent forms of content that can turn a text-heavy site into something that pleases the viewing preferences of multiple audiences.
  • Customer Proof – No matter what you’re selling, potential buyers like to see confirmation that you’ve made other customers happy. Testimonials, customer reviews and case studies are powerful sources of content for moving prospects even closer to the final buying stages.

Conversion:

Now that you know what it takes to drive traffic and engage visitors with great content, the next step is to get your visitors to convert from a prospect into a lead. You don’t want them leaving without providing some information or else you will lose the opportunity to nurture them until they are ready to buy.

  • Effective Calls-to-Action – The effect of a successful Call to Action (CTA) is to drive a visitor to take a desired action. CTAs are typically kept above the fold or in clear sight on a page so visitors know where to take the next step. CTAs are the key to lead generation but they need to be done right to convert traffic into leads.
  • CTA Positioning – You want to think about where you will be placing your CTAs. You don’t want to dump CTAs everywhere. That will give people too many options or not the right options at the right time.
  • Landing Pages – Now that you have some awesome CTAs you need to drive those links to landing pages. Landing pages, sometimes called a “Lead Capture Page,” are used to convert visitors into leads by completing a transaction or by collecting contact information from them.
  • Forms – You might be wondering how much or how little information you should require with a form. There is no magic answer when it comes to how many fields your form should contain but the best balance would be to collect only the information you really need.
  • Newsletters – You should definitely offer a newsletter subscription on your website. Not all CTAs need to be big offers. Newsletters or mailing lists are the perfect way to collect email addresses so you can nurture prospects over time to become leads. Just make sure it’s easy for people to find your subscription form.

 

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