Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

What is Content? (Part 2 of 2)
by Scottie Claiborne ©Copyright 2004

Both search engines and customers love fresh, updated 
information. Some people groan at the thought of having 
to work so hard at adding new content, but it's not as 
complicated as you think!

Fresh Information

Weblogs or Blogs

Blogs exploded on the scene about a year ago with services like
Moveable Type (http://www.movabletype.org/) and Blogger
(http://www.blogger.com/) making it incredibly easy for anyone 
to publish on the web. A blog is basically a series of posts 
that appear by date posted- the oldest ones scroll off to an 
archive. It's basically an online journal. Setup is minimal and 
the interface is easy to learn- it's as easy composing a word
processing document and hitting save. BAM. you are a web
publisher!

Blogs are a hit with people who like to keep an online journal
and personal blogs are a huge part of the blogging community. 
But blogs aren't just for angst-ridden teens and conspiracy
theorists; they can help your business too!

Blogs can be integrated seamlessly into your site so that they
have the same look and feel. You can use a blog to publish a
running event calendar 
(http://www.webbwilder.com/blogs/theroad-v2/theroad.html) or
comment on industry news developments
(http://www.searchengineblog.com/). A blog can be strictly
professional, announcing specials, daily interest rates, or new
product info or it can be casual and create a "personality" for
your company.

What can a blog do for your business? Think about what your
customers want to know.

Newsletter

Start a newsletter! Ask visitors to sign up for your newsletter
(never send unsolicited e-mails) and set up a weekly, bi-weekly,
monthly, or quarterly schedule to deliver your newsletter. Then
stick with it!

I bought some printer ink online from a vendor that offered me
the opportunity to sign up for specials. Every month like
clockwork, I get the latest specials in my inbox and it always
prompts me to check my supplies before deleting it. If I didn't
get that e-mail from them, I would have probably bought the next
round from whoever came up in a search!

Your newsletter may be product offerings and specials mixed 
in with useful product reviews, or it may be a recap of what's 
going on in your industry. If you aren't a writer, find articles
available for reprint in your industry. Make sure the newsletter
has some value to the reader. Archive the newsletter on your 
site for additional content and make the archives available for
browsing.

Most webhosts have some sort of mailing list capability, or you
can compose and mail your newsletter in Outlook. There are many
third-party mailing services that are ideal if you plan for a
large list- check out Constant Contact (http://addme.roving.com/).

Interactive Pages

Forum

A forum is an incredible tool for building content and a
community. It's not a task to be undertaken lightly; it requires
a lot of time and energy and some technical knowledge (or a tech
budget!)

If your industry has a need, or your product has a loyal 
following, a forum is a great tool to build content while 
drawing like-minded individuals together. A forum is great for 
market research, technical support, building a fan base, trading 
ideas and knowledge, and many, many other benefits.

Forums work best when you start off with a core group of people
willing to post- no one wants to talk to an empty room! Try to
get people from similar business or industry experts to post at
your forum. It's exposure for them and helps to build a solid
foundation for your information.

If you decide to start a forum, be sure to use one that is
search-friendly, such as InvisionBoard 
(http://www.invisionboard.com/) or phpbb (http://www.phpbb.com/),
and set aside a good chunk of time to promote it and administer
it.

Feedback & Reviews

Unsolicited feedback is a powerful convincing tool! Let your
customers tell other customers why they love you. It's much more
compelling than your own claims, if handled well.

There are many ways to handle feedback- the easiest way is to
simply set up a form to allow customers to submit their feedback.
You can then publish the ones you choose (with permission).

There are many scripts and other software solutions that will
allow people to review your products or service online. This can
be risky if you aren't willing to take the good with the bad!
Used well, it's a powerful selling tool.

Often people can be enticed to write a review or testimonial for
your site in return for a link back to their site. This helps
them with link popularity, but it helps your site as well by 
showing that a real person wrote that review.

Weblogs or Blogs (again)

Several blog programs come with a "comment" ability built in.
This allows general users to create an account and post their
comments to your blog. This is something to be careful of as you
can get negative comments along with the positive.

Ask The Expert

This is a great idea that I've seen recently. Using forum
software, users submit questions and someone at the company
answers them. The Q&A are both published on the site for users 
to read once they are answered in a "knowledge database". This 
is less time-intensive than a full-blown forum but a great way 
to keep a finger on the pulse of what customers want to know 
while still adding content on a regular basis.

Summary

I've often heard the argument, "My site doesn't need to be
informational, I just sell things." That may be true! There are
plenty of sites that are lean and mean and built to sell; they
usually rely on things like PPC advertising and offline
promotions for traffic. That's a viable business model and it
works well.

But if you are interested in building loyalty and interest in
your company as well as repeat business and you want to get
increased traffic from the "editorial" or free listings 
(http://www.rightclickwebs.com/seo/seo-analogy.php) in the 
search engines, you have to offer more to your users. If you
create a plan for content that offers value and interest to your
customers, you can have a site that is built to sell AND drive
repeat business.

================================================================
Scottie Claiborne is the owner of Right Click Web Consulting
(http://www.rightclickwebs.com) and the facilitator of the
Successful Sites Newsletter (http://www.successful-sites.com).
She is a speaker at the Search Engine Strategies conferences and
the High Rankings Seminars as well as the Administrator of the
High Rankings Forum (http://www.highrankings.com/forum) and a
moderator at the Cre8asite Forums (http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/).
================================================================

Copyright © 2004 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.