Update your content as often as is appropriate. It’s always a bad idea just to create content for content’s
sake. Keep an eye to adding at least one page of new content each week. You could go to a
monthly schedule, but doing so would make it very difficult for people to remember you except
for that one time per month when they’re notified that your content has changed (assuming you
have a notification system). And if they receive no notification, the chance of their remembering
your site is even smaller.
As a general rule, people today are so busy they can’t keep things in their minds for more than a
few hours. If you have a site that updates monthly, and tell customers or subscribers that you’ll
have a sale the next month, it’s unlikely that many of them will remember. Some will, but most
won’t. You lose the effectiveness of regularly updated content when you update only once a
month or less.
When you’re writing your content, there are some rules about how the content is best written for
the Web. Words on a screen are viewed much differently from words on a page. Where possible,
your customers should be able to interact with your words. So include links and other interactive
features in your text.
Here are some additional guidelines to follow when creating your web-site content:
Make sure any content that you include on your site is contextually relevant. People
and search engine crawlers will be looking at the relevance of content to your site
and to any advertisements that led them to the site. Make sure everything you include
is relevant in some way. It also helps if the content addresses a need the customer
might have.
Use original content whenever possible. Original content is much more valuable than articles
that have been distributed to you and all of your competitors. Why should visitors
come to your site if they can find the same information somewhere else?
Be sure that all of your content uses proper spelling and grammar. Nothing looks more
unprofessional than web-site content that looks as though the writer flunked English 101.
And it does happen, so if you’re not an editor, find someone who is and ask that person to
check your content before it’s posted to your web site.
Use mostly short sentences, with 10 words or less. If you must use a medium-length
sentence, try to incorporate it with shorter sentences around it. Users don’t have a lot of
patience for long, rambling sentences in print publications and even less patience for
them on the Web. (But there is value to varying a succession of short sentences with one
a little longer — it keeps your writing from sounding like a kindergarten primer.)
Use short paragraphs with lots of white space in between. In the print world, white space
is your enemy. Too much white space means wasted space. But on the Internet, where real
estate isn’t quite as expensive, white space is essential to the flow of the content. Reading on
the screen is much more difficult for most people, so the extra white space helps them to
keep up with their place in the content. A good rule of thumb is to keep your paragraphs to
no more than four or five short sentences.
Use bulleted and numbered lists as often as possible without interrupting the flow of the
article or the other content on your site. Such lists are easy to read. They provide the at-aglance
content that readers love. It’s easy for them to find quickly the information they need.
Break up your content with interesting titles, headings, and subheadings. Again, this is
one of those elements of web-site content that make it more at-a-glance in nature. The
variety helps your readers quickly skim through to find the exact information they need.
Titles, headings, and subheadings are much more important on the Web than they ever
were in print.
Use keywords where possible, but don’t overdo it. You’ve heard this so many times by
now that is should be branded into your brain. Use keywords only where they make
sense. Period.
Use a call to action. Users will not take action if you don’t invite them to. So invite them.
When you need a form filled out, when you want them to join a mailing list, or when you
want them to make a purchase, ask them. The old adage “ask and ye shall receive” is just
as valuable online as it is in real life.
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