A website’s efficacy is determined by its content because a visitor comes to a web resource for useful information. High-quality, interesting and unique site content is already half of the success. Let’s consider the main types of content, the requirements for them, and the directions of work with content.
Why Is Unique Content Important?
The most common definition of content is textual content, with video and audio materials coming in second. It’s impossible to boost the productivity of your online company and get your site to the top of search rankings without high-quality content.
Any information provided by the site should be useful to the consumer. In practice, readers do not have a high level of confidence in advertisement publications. On the other hand, trustworthy and relevant expert-type content encourages visitors to remain on the web and click the Buy button.
It is also worth mentioning that the search engine algorithms display only sites with the highest quality content in the top results. In order to identify them, special behavioural ranking factors have been developed. That allows search engines to determine how much the page is in demand by users.
5 Main Content Types You Need to Use
Filling the site with content is an essential task. As previously stated, high-quality website content includes more than just texts and illustrations. It also must include video and audio, as well as link material, headings, and tags.
1. Text Content. Copyright
Text created from scratch by a professional journalist or copywriter is preferred by search engines and, of course, users. The author’s material increases the loyalty of site visitors to the product, which means it has a positive effect on conversion and sales. So, if you have such a question as “Where can I find unique content?”, you can go to a professional essay writing service to get remarkable texts for your website. Or hire a social media manager with experience in the field of your business. It can aid in improved marketing and SEO rankings. As a result, your website will become more recognisable.
Good to know…
The results of numerous studies show that long texts increase conversions better than short ones. So, the Quick Sprout blog analysed the dependence of the number of “tweets” and “likes” on the text size and revealed a pattern. Posts with over 1500 words of content earned 68.1 percent more “tweets” and 22.6 percent more Facebook “likes” on average than posts with less than 1,500 words.
2. Audio Materials And Podcasts
Audio content includes any sound clips – music, recordings of interviews, podcasts, lectures, webinars. The most valuable audio content is the one that the client cannot hear anywhere else. Audio materials can be used as educational materials to increase the level of trust and awareness of the product. On selling sites it can be audio instructions, on image sites – various presentations, lectures by authoritative experts, etc.
3. Videos
Video content is a variety of clips, video tutorials, screencasts, educational videos, films, video presentations, virtual tours, and much more. You can shoot by yourself, take videos from free sources, buy or even involve users in such content creation – for example, by organising video contests. A study by Eyeview has shown that posting high-quality video content can increase website conversions by 86%.
By the way…
Search engines cannot determine the originality of audio and video content, but this does not mean that such site content is useless. It encourages users to stay longer on the website, which is factored into the ranking.
4. Images
Images include not only pictures but also animation, photographs, diagrams, screenshots, slides. Infographics are especially effective – they increase traffic by 12% on average. It is worth remembering the phrase “picture to attract attention”, which is often used on Facebook. Text with illustrations gets almost 100% more attention than text without pictures.
5. Headings
The title of the site plays a significant role in its promotion. It should be original, clearly describing its content, detailed and informative.
It is worth saying that many users do not read the text on the site page at all, but just skim over the headings, looking for the information they need. And if they are indistinct and colourless, the page will be closed.
Title, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 are all examples of headings. The title tag can be seen by hovering over the address bar. Search engines use it to determine what the page is about. It should be succinct and describe the content of the page.
Bonus: 21 Ideas on How to Increase Website Conversion
Conversion is the percentage of website visitors who completed the target action: ordered a product, called a company, or subscribed to a product. This is one of the most important marketing metrics. For example, out of 1000 users, 5 people registered for the webinar. The conversion will be 0.5%. If 200 people applied, then the conversion will already be 20%. The higher the percentage, the better.
Here are 19 ways to increase website conversions:
- 1. Check the text for errors. An illiterate text with a 99% probability will alienate the user. For example, a UK pantyhose website did not immediately notice the misspelling of the category (tihgts instead of tights). When the word was corrected, the conversion increased by 80%.
- 2. Adjust the text to your SEO requirements. Invite an SEO specialist and copywriter to evaluate the content already on the site. This way you can increase organic traffic – more people will come to your site from search engines.
- 3. Don’t use exclamation marks. Usually, offers with exclamation marks seem to be a manipulation. The company has nothing to offer and it tries to convince customers at any cost. Such text looks cheap and more often turns off customers than attracts them.
- 4. Test the headers. They should be short and at the same time clearly convey the essence to the user. Do not be foggy – it is better to speak clearly. Especially, this concerns articles: from their title it should be clear what is the benefit for the reader. SumoMe conducted extensive research and found that creative headlines hurt conversions.
- 5. Speak the language of benefit. Describe the benefits of the product or product. Most customers do not care how many awards and decorations the company has. It is important for them to know if they can solve the problem.
- 6. Check which CTAs perform best. For example, Unbounce conducted research and found that replacing the “Start your free 30 day trial” button with “Start my free 30 day trial” increased the number of clicks by 90%.
- 7. Make friends with storytelling. People love interesting stories and don’t like compulsive sales. Tell about the product in a way that will interest the user.
- 8. Make the description of the product or service clear. Tell us about how to use the product, what benefits it brings to the client, how it differs from other products.
- 9. Structure your content. It is better to divide the text on the page into understandable sections than to write it on a solid canvas. It’s good if each of them has a target action button. Use headings and subheadings, highlight colors, photos, and helpful links on your blog.
- 10. Add social proof. Real testimonials or photos from Instagram with a specific product “in action” will do just fine. According to Baymard’s research, 95% of users find other people’s reviews of a product important. Based on them, they make a purchase decision.
- 11. Blog. Fill it with content that is relevant and useful to the user. Show yourself as an expert in your field.
- 12. Use quality photographs. According to Baymard research, 56% of users look at photos and illustrations first when they visit a page. Low-quality pictures can alienate some visitors and they will close the site.
- 13. Add a video. According to a 2017 Wyzowl survey, 97% of businesses saw an increase in conversions when they added a video to their landing page. This could be a training video, a promotional video, or something else on your topic.
- 14. Compress photos. Users don’t like to wait. Compress pictures to make the site load faster. You can compress it in special services: Optimizilla, Compressor.io, CompressNow.
- 15. Increase your website loading speed. You can check your site’s loading speed on Google PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, or WebPageTest. Here you can also get recommendations on how to optimise your download speed.
- 16. Run A/B tests. Divide users into 2 groups and show them different versions of the pages. For example, some people see a blue button at the end of an article, while others see a green one. Or for some, put CTA at the top of the page, and for others – at the end. After the test, look at the result that gave the highest conversion.
- 17. Make user-friendly navigation. Convenient menu and links to other sections. It is much more pleasant to “wander” around the site when everything is intuitively clear and the desired section is easy to find. Easy navigation can even affect the position of the site in the search results.
- 18. Connect the primary geolocation check. In case you have a website in several languages and you work for different countries. Many people now make retargeting automatic but specify which version of the resource the user wants to visit.
- 19. Simplify the registration or subscription form. Most often, people are just too lazy to fill out all the items, and their abundance is simply alarming. Interesting case: Expedia increased its revenue by $12 million simply by removing the “company name” field in the subscription form. The field confused some users, because of which they entered incorrect data. As a result, Expedia could not verify the credit card information and customers could not pay online.
P.S. What Decreases Conversion
Several elements that can kill site conversions:
- pop-ups that cannot be closed.
- doubtful CTA: “Lose weight 15 kg in 2 hours”
- several exclamation marks in a row
- an abundance of advertising banners from third-party sites
- flashing buttons
- too colorful palette of the site
- design from the days when the Internet first appeared
- template phrases that users have seen a thousand times: “Only here, only now”
- very long page loading
- incomprehensible navigation
- the need to register and enter a bunch of data, including the name of the great-aunt’s cat
Don’t go too far when trying to increase your site’s conversions. You should not use the cases of other resources as a guide to action. What worked for some may not necessarily work for you. Test different approaches and find the ones that work for you.