How to Create a Web Content Strategy That Converts

by Josette Millar

It’s not enough just to publish a website or write religiously on a company blog. Look around the web. There are millions of sites garnering no attention and driving no sales. To convert browsers to customers, you need a web content strategy. Before wasting your time with scatter-shot articles or inconsistent blog posts, consider implementing these three steps to produce web content that converts.

Know Your Ideal Audience

One of the biggest mistakes new businesses make is not clearly identifying their audience. Instead of taking pinpoint aim at their ideal customer and that customer’s needs, businesses without a web content strategy try to appeal to everyone. While this approach seems sound by getting a wide funnel of people to see the content, it ultimately dilutes the message and weakens overall sales.

You don’t want any customer. You want customers that are dying to get your product. You want customers who will be passionate consumers of your brand and willing to spread that enthusiasm to others. You want ideal customers.

Write to that audience. Don’t water down your brand by trying to appeal to everyone. Identify your core customers and appeal directly to them. While that may whittle down your homepage click-through rates, you also appeal only to those customers specifically looking to purchase your services.

Teamwork Required

Web content strategy isn’t a one department job. Strong web content strategy requires each department of your company contributing to the overall web content mission. Yes, design probably hates writing and, no, finance probably shouldn’t write about the finer points of budget assessment, but each member of your team can contribute insight that your ideal customer craves.

A solid website content strategy requires the entire company to work together. By engaging employees in the wider mission of the organization and letting them brag about their contribution, company morale increases and each department gets a better idea of what other departments do on a day-to-day basis. On the customer end, your ideal audience wants insider insight. They want a behind-the-scenes look at the service or product they’re passionate about. By integrating the entire company into developing a strong web content strategy, businesses not only improve employee engagement but they increase sales by engaging customers.

Create Content Consistency

Companies now understand the importance of strong brand awareness. From company letterhead to website colors, cultivating a company brand that your customers can easily identify is important to promoting your company and increasing sales. The same goes for web content strategy. You need consistency and branding in your content.

Strong templates are the core of this consistency. You want your audience to know what to expect and how to easily find information on your website. You want your staff to understand your website mission and how to create content that supports that mission. Before committing fingertips to blog, you need to create solid templates and calendars that address what information you want to convey, what your timeline is, and how you want to train your employees to provide that content. Templates not only save time but they promote sales. Customers learn what to expect and grow comfortable gathering information from your company.

Web content strategy requires a lot of moving parts to work properly. Not only do employees need to be engaged in providing quality content but each needs to understand the mission and goal of the company’s web content. This requires significant planning; a strong platform with a solid web content strategy reaps ample rewards in the form of ideal customers, increased sales, and a better understanding of your business.