How Much Does Website Content Cost?

When small business owners talk to website designers and content providers, the question of cost is always prominent. There's no question about it: Creating a brand new website or revamping an existing one comes at a price. Everything involved in promoting a business has its price. What you pay for the service provided has a lot to do with the quality of service you get. It's true for your own business, and it's true for the business of creating websites. It's not really price that should be the main question; it's value.

Content Matters for Every Visitor from the Start - It Must Capture Them
The content on your website is your introduction to your prospective customers and clients. When they search for the products and services you provide, the content and design of your website are major factors they consider. It's the firm handshake and smile they experience immediately. Just as with personal greetings, the quality of that experience makes a lasting impression. On your website, that initial impression determines whether the visitor sticks around long enough to get your message or clicks the back button and moves on to the next website in the search engine results. A website can might land on any page of your website, not just your Home Page. Every page needs to greet your visitors, capture their attention, and help them find the information they're looking for.

Your Website's Content Tells Your Story - Keeping Visitors Learning More
Once your website's handshake and smile captures their attention, helping visitors understand what you offer and why that offer is a good one is the next job of your website content. Everyone who comes to your website is looking for information that helps them solve a problem. That's why they searched for businesses like yours in the first place. The content on your website has to let them know that you understand their needs and are capable of solving their problems in the best possible way. That's not easy. Your sales staff does that for everyone they meet, and your website content has the same job. How well it does that job determines whether they stay on your site to learn more.

Your Website Content Helps Close the Deal - Converting Visitors into Customers
After showing visitors that you understand their needs, your content has another job. It has to convince those visitors that the next step they should take is to contact you, order products, or come to your location. Many small business websites, especially, fail to convince visitors that they should take that step, or make it difficult for them to do. Giving your website guests information is important, but unless they take what they learn and make a decision to choose you, they may make the deal with some other business. Like a great salesperson, your website content is always working on closing the deal. If it succeeds, you succeed.

Quality Website Content Means High Value Results
Everything about your website, but especially its content, is important. Selling is difficult in any marketplace, and a top-quality sales strategy is the only path to success. To get maximum results from your Internet marketing efforts, only content with excellent quality can give you the true value you're paying for. You can get low quality website content cheaply, or you can pay more for content that gets the results you expect. Content providers are not all alike and neither is the quality they produce. Creating website content is a competitive business, and the price range is relatively small. Guarantee maximum value by choosing a content provider with a proven record of quality work.

Judge Content Quality for Yourself Before Choosing a Content Provider
It's not all that difficult to judge the quality of a website content provider. Any individual or company in that business should be happy to give you links to websites that they have done. Go to those websites and take some time to see what's there. Judge for yourself whether or not the content of that website works. Is it accurate, well-written, and convincing? Would you patronize that business if you were in the market for its goods or services? Make your decision based on actual samples of the work. Compare the work of several content providers and choose carefully. Once your website is online, it's very costly to redo it.
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Email Me for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your current website's content, or call George Campbell at 651-774-7999. To see examples of my web content, click any of the Work Sample links in the left column of this blog. I'd love to help you make your website the very best it can be through effective, dynamic content that presents your business in a way that gets results.

Is Website Design More Important than Content?

It's common for businesses who are planning a new website or a revamp of their current website to start by contacting a website designer. Wherever you are, there are probably dozens of website designers nearby who are eagerly looking for projects. When you're considering a choice among them, you should take a close look at websites they have designed in the past, because that's an excellent indication of what they'll produce for you. Here's a guide to help you evaluate a designer's ability to help you create a website that actually generates new leads and sales:

• Is the Designer's Style Compatible with Your Business? - Each website designer has his or her own website design concept. When you're looking at samples of a designer's work, try substituting your own company name in your mind. Does the design reflect your own business concept? Does it appeal to you? Do you think it will appeal to your customers?
• What Is the Balance between Graphics and Text? - How much text do you see on the sample website's home page and on other pages. The text content on the website is what conveys your message to visitors. If it's skimpy or sparse, odds are that visitors will not find the information they're looking for when they come to the website.
• Is the Website's Navigation Easy to Understand? - Getting a visitor to stick around and see what's on any website is difficult. Everyone website visitor is seeking information, and the navigation tools on that website are the map that leads them to the information. Look at the sample website. Can you figure out how to get to the pages that provide information? If not, that design may cause visitors to stop by briefly, look around, and then depart. 
• Do You See Search Phrases Visitors Might Use to Search for The Website? - On every page of the website, you should see search phrases and words that a potential customer might use to search for that type of business. If you don't see them, then neither will Google, Yahoo and Bing. All text content on the website must be SEO rich, or people won't find the site when they search. That's one of the reasons websites need plenty of content. Content is the only way to expose those search terms and phrases to search engines.
• Is the Content on the Website Well-Written and Interesting? - Writing effective marketing content is an art. It has to capture the attention of visitors, provide them with useful information and entice them to stay on the website and explore further. Poor quality writing, full of misspellings, grammar errors and awkward language, has just the opposite effect. Instead of building interest in your products or services, it sends visitors looking for the Back button on their browsers. 

Take your time in deciding on a website designer for your project. Study samples of their work, and evaluate it based on the questions above. Don't expect a radically different design concept from any designer. After looking at a sample or two, you'll have a good idea of what that designer will produce for you. Successful websites require a balance between graphical appearance and the content on the website. Successful designers work with top-quality content writers and understand that it is the content of the website that sells the goods and services, while providing the framework for the SEO that brings visitors to the website. The bottom line is that graphical design and text content are equally important to the success of any website.

Email Me for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your current website's content, or call George Campbell at 651-774-7999. To see examples of my web content, click any of the Work Sample links in the left column of this blog. The content I write has a long track record of success in generating sales and leads and employs SEO strategies that help you attract visitors. I'll work closely with your web designer to create an ideal balance between design and content.

Why Content Continuity Matters for Your Website

Many small business websites grow over time, with pages added from time to time as the needs of the business changes. While it's important to keep your website up-to-date and reflecting your current business situation, there's a danger in simply adding new pages and making changes in existing pages. For too many websites, changes over time lead to a loss of continuity within the website. A lack of continuity can be confusing to visitors, leading to decreased effectiveness.

The problem can arise due to different writers working on a website at a different times. In addition, the concept behind the website may have changed over its lifetime, and those changes may cause newer pages to look different or read differently than other pages. Again, this can cause confusion for visitors, and confusion is never a plus for any website. Continuity should be a consideration throughout any business website's lifetime. There are several types of content continuity that need to be considered during the design and execution of any website project:

• Continuity of Focus - Every page of a website should contribute to the overall focus of that website. If a business changes its focus, the entire website may need content changes to reflect that focus. If pages are being added to an existing website, focus continuity should be part of preparation of every page. Having the same person writing your website content is the easiest way to preserve continuity of focus.
• Continuity of Style - Every document or web page has a distinct style of writing. Everything, including sentence structure, word choices, use of features like bullet lists, and even capitalization styles play a role in the style of a website. Changes of style can be confusing to the visitor and, in the worst case, may lead a visitor to think they're not even on the same website. Again, having one writer create the content for every page on your website eliminates the problem.
• Continuity of SEO - To attain maximum placement in search engine results pages, the SEO used on your website needs to have continuity as well. Primary search terms and phrases need to be carefully integrated throughout the site to lend credibility and strength to your SEO strategy. Secondary SEO terms and phrases, must work with the primary SEO goals as well. A professional content writer will maintain this continuity in a way that gets results without clumsiness of language.
• Continuity of Tone - Keeping the tone of your website consistent is the most difficult continuity challenge. While some professional content writers can match tone with existing content, it's a rare skill. If multiple writers work on your site's content over time, the continuity of tone is bound to suffer. Continuity of tone is crucial to creating a welcoming, effective environment that retains and converts visitors.

For each of these continuity issues, the simplest way to maintain a coherent, consistent flow of content is to use the same professional content writer for the entire site. Often, a complete rewrite of a website can transform that site from a low-performing, confusing site that isn't producing SEO results and visitor retention and conversion into a dynamic, productive site that gets the powerful results you're seeking. The results can be dramatic.

Email Me for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your current website's content, or call George Campbell at 651-774-7999. To see examples of my web content, click any of the Work Sample links in the left column of this blog. I'd love to help you make your website the very best it can be through effective, dynamic content that presents your business in a way that gets results.