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5 Staples Of Web Content (And How They Are Used)

Written web content is essential to attracting traffic (SEO), making online associations, and most importantly, driving sales and conversions. Naturally, there are several different types of web content in widespread use across the web. Here are the leading 5 staples of web content and how they are used:

1. Website Copy – Used to inform, attract search visitors, and lead to conversions and sales, website copy is how visitors get to know you and what you are all about. It is your organization’s online “voice” and should not be taken lightly. Of course, different parts of a website will utilize different types of website copy—some likely oriented to sales, while other parts intended to inform and build trust with visitors.

2. Blog Copy – Much like standard website copy, blog copy is used to inform, attract search visitors, and lead to conversions—most likely by leading visitors to more sales oriented segments of a website. Often less formal in stature than traditional website copy, blog copy is a great way to post current news and updates, and also to publish shorter bits of information that aren’t likely candidates for having their own full-fledged web copy developed.

3. Article Directory Articles – Used primarily for building incoming links to a website—but also to “pre-sell” the readership and ideally attract them to the website as well. They’re also used as a way to distribute content (and therefore attract links) via other external sites.

4. Guest Blog Posts – Writing guest posts for other websites’ blogs within your niche or industry is a great way to attract interested visitors to your website to learn more about who you are and what you do.

5. Social Media Posts – Commonly called “blurbs,” the micro posts often done several times per day via the social media outlets online should definitely not be overlooked as a staple form of web content. Generally intended to capture attention and refer visitors to other major web content components elsewhere within your overall web presence, a steady and consistent stream of social media posts add up to a highly valuable body of web content.

We can help you perfect your web content strategy—making your SEM, SEO, or PPC plan much more effective. If you’re in San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo, or the general vicinity, please we’d love to meet with you directly…and of course, we’re eager here at WSpider to serve our friends in locations all around the world too. Just give us a call today for expert assistance!

How To Create A Content Development Plan

Ongoing content development is one of the single most important things you can do to improve your website’s SEO factor, as well as attracting valuable new visitors from all around the web.  And you do want to attract as much targeted, on-topic traffic as possible for your website, correct?

Well, let’s cut right to the chase then.  Writing content is not all that hard—it just helps to have a system or some kind of plan in place that you can rely on when it comes to knowing what’s next.  The following is just one such example of a sample plan that might work great for a small business or organization on the web.

One quick disclaimer here…not all sites are the same!   If you’re not quite sure of what you’ll need, please have a good conversation about the specifics—things like topics, keywords, and content quantities—for your site with a pro before jumping in (whether you’re located in the San Francisco / San Jose area or on the other side of the continent, please feel free to get in touch with us here at WSpider—we’re always eager to help).

Without further delay, here’s our sample content development plan:

First of the Month:

Come up with a new list of keyword phrases to focus on throughout the upcoming month.
Brainstorm and review previously noted content ideas for your site.
Make an updated content writing schedule for the month based on you anticipated working days, etc.

Weekly Schedule:

Monday:  Write and publish one new informative keyword-focused content article for your website.  This will generally be for a static page in a certain specified part of your site (i.e. not for your blog).

Tuesday:  Write a helpful and informative keyword-based blog article, perhaps covering a current event, trend, or just something that’s helpful and conversational to your website’s visitors.

Wednesday:  Write a keyword optimized article in the 350-500 word range to be used for the article directories.  Feel free to re-spin one of Monday or Tuesday’s articles, as long as you ensure the content is not exactly duplicated or copied in any way.  If you’ve targeted opportunities on niche-related blogs or other relevant but non-competitive sites, you could arrange and substitute an occasional guest post on one of these external sites instead of the article directory.

Thursday:  Write another blog post that’s based around one of your pre-identified keyword phrases.  It’s important to remember that pretty much all of your content will be wrapped around keywords to be most effective—it pays to become very familiar with using keywords while writing for the web.

Friday:  Take some time to catch up on other industry or niche-related blogs and websites.  Participate and make appropriate helpful and value-added comments when possible and relevant (don’t just comment for the sake of putting your link out there—that’s considered spam and will earn you a bad reputation on these sites fairly quickly).  While going through these sites, make notes of any new ideas that they inspire for future use.

Go ahead, take the weekend off.  You’ve earned it!

And that’s all there is to it—feel free to ramp up this strategy at any time, but know that if you are doing at least one task per day, you’ll generate way more traffic-generating content over the course of a few weeks that most websites (likely including your competitors) will create over an entire year.

Building A Blog Into Your Website Opens Doors

Don’t fall fool to some of the so-called experts out there, who in the age of Twitter and social media, are saying that blogging is all but dead.  Sure, in the world of tech gurus and social media socialites, those that started off as prolific bloggers are now using other outlets and offsetting the frequency of how often they blog.  But for the average Joe out there seeking to open their doors to more and more on-target web traffic, the list of reasons to blog goes on and on!

Sites with blogs built in get exclusive access to Google Blog Search.  That’s right, those without blogs simply do not get to play in this game.  And actually, it’s not much of a game—getting listed on the blog search engine for your blog posts’ topics is practically automatic if you’re not doing anything (like black hat SEO) to scare Google away.  Bottom line:  no blog, no free listings here.

When set up correctly, your site’s blog can actually point incoming links back to your site.  Having the benefit of “two sites in one” means each component of your web presence can help build the link popularity of the other.  There are several reasons why you would want to do this, and also several reasons why you might not.  But if you’d like, give us a call here at WSpider.com to talk about it.

Blogs are trusted by your customers.  Visitors are often a little bit skeptical about a website’s sales copy.  But provide them with an ongoing dialogue packed full of details and inside information about how you do business, and you’ll build more and more trust with each new blog post.  Visitors love to see your unique voice—and blogs are the perfect way to establish this form of ongoing dialogue on your website.

Bloggers are a friendly bunch (most of the time).  Think about it like this…most websites are not going to just freely link to your site’s sales copy or squeeze pages without incentive—usually in the monetary form—to do so.  Those days are simply over.  However, other blogs and sites will shoot a link over to your blog or your latest blog post that really hits the spot in their eyes.  Because blogs are known to share information freely, the attitude towards sharing link love between blogs is much more open than in other cases.

As a search engine marketing company, what we do best at WSpider is taking a holistic view of how different website ideas—both on site and external—can work together to make your site more successful than ever.  Blogs are a major part of any big picture website strategy!