Images
If you think about Facebook and what is most likely to catch your eye there, you’ll probably agree that photos are mostly likely to do the job. Whether they’re funny, pretty or gross – they fill your News Feeds and that’s because people share, comment, tweet and Like them.
If you learn and publish the photos your visitors will love, you’ll be on the right track. Think about creating slideshows or collections of images for good results. For example, if you are an estate agent you could show a collection of images of what not to do if you want to sell your house quickly. Images of dirty kitchens and gross bedrooms will get people laughing and sharing.
Your collections of images can reside on your website and links to them can be posted to Facebook where they will hopefully be shared.
An article featured in the
Daily Mail showed a collection of tired puppies (that’s one of the sleeping beauties above). The article was Liked by over 10,000 people on Facebook – much more than the 27 people who Liked the newspapers’ article on the shocking news that Subway’s footlongs are in fact only eleven inches long!!
User Generated Content
This kind of content is very valuable and yet simple to get and it often needs minimal effort from you. It is essentially where you get your customers or website visitors to create content for you. For example, you could ask your customers for their best tips on “How To Do X”. You can then collate their ideas to make one great article that can be posted to your site and shared on your social media channels.
Your user generated content could be gained by asking for images, videos, product reviews or even blog posts. You might need to offer something in return for this content, particularly if it’s long and/or in-depth. The prize could be as simple as saying “The winning picture/video will be on the home page for the whole month”.
Create a Collection of Links and/or Useful Sources
If you’re limited by time and budget then this is a cost effective and quick way to get a bit of content on your site. Ideally you wouldn’t just search Google and replicate its results in your article – instead you’d use your knowledge and experience to help your visitors out, exactly as you would if you were talking face-to-face with them.
For example, suppose you have a dog grooming business and a website promoting these services; you might consider adding a page to your site for people who have just got a puppy. This page might contain a link to puppy training services or links to articles on settling in a new puppy or on the necessary immunisations. This kind of content, that draws on your experience and expertise, is very useful to website visitors with whom you’re looking to build a long-term relationship. It also helps your business networking, allowing you to build contacts with related companies who will recommend you to their customers and visitors.
Call in the Experts
By this, we don’t mean get in an expert to create your content but instead make the most of any industry contacts you have and ask them to help you produce on or two pieces of content. In order for this to happen as quickly and easily as possible you could give your contact a title for a blog post or article. You could make it even easier for them by also providing a list of sub headings or topics that could be covered in the article.
You can tell your contact the article needn’t be really long and/or polished. You can then play sub editor once they’ve completed it by adding in images, correcting typos, making sure it meets what your target audience is looking for, and making sure it is well optimised for search.
Customer Questions/FAQs
If you’re an online retailer it’s likely that you get asked the same questions over and over again. We’re not talking about questions about delivery and returns (although if people are asking these questions frequently you may need to present the information more clearly on your website), but instead questions about the individual products or services you’re offering. Do people keep calling and asking which exercise class burns the most calories? Do people ask if a vegetarian meal option is included on that boat trip? Do people ask if they need any special tools to put together that piece of garden machinery they’re considering buying?
You needn’t write one great big list of FAQs; instead it’d probably be best to group them into categories and place them in the corresponding part of your website. This kind of content might make the sale happen and help provide the customer with a better web experience as all their questions have answers.
Kenwood do a good job of this. They have FAQs for many of their products. Each
sub-section provides a wide range of questions and answers:
Remember…
- Don’t just create content for the sake of it. It should always be interesting and targeted at building a relationship with your visitors.
- Monitor the performance of the content. Look at the number of visitors/pageviews, the average time spent on the page, the bounce rate and the conversion rate.
- Keep the content up-to-date – if something becomes stale, write a new version and link the old version to the new.
- Create content to a regular schedule, and stick to that schedule. Plan ahead with a content calendar, but be prepared to make adjustments to that calendar should events dictate.
