Website Content Development Made Easy

by Brandon Cornett

Are you a webmaster who is often asked to write content for the websites you manage? Maybe you're tasked to develop new content for the company where you work, or for your web design clients?

If so, this article will help you overcome your fear of website content development and tackle the job head on. It will also help you increase the value you provide to clients or employers, because you'll be a "double threat" -- you'll able to create websites and write content for them as well.

3 Tips for Creating Web Content

Entire books have been written on the subject of website content development and web publishing. So instead of tackling the entire subject, I'll focus here on three tips that will help you write web content more quickly and easily (while overcoming your apprehension at the same time).

1. Put Substance Before Style

Let me start by putting your mind at ease, with regard to a common fear people have about writing. When you publish information onto a business website, the content is more important than the form. In other words, you don't have to write like William Faulkner when you develop web content. In fact, it's best if you don't write that way. Sure, you have to write clearly and cleanly, without typos and major grammatical errors. But when it comes to the development of website content, what you say is more important than how you say it.

The best thing you can do when publishing information is to (A) select topics your audience really wants to know about and (B) explain those topics in clear, straightforward manner. Be thorough and helpful with your writing, and you have won half the battle already.

2. Outline Before You Write

The more content you create for your website or blog, the more search engine traffic you'll get. It only makes sense. By expanding the amount of information on your site, you're also increasing your visibility for a broader range of key phrases. Sure, many people will find you by searching a handful of the same phrases (these are your high-traffic keywords). But you can also get a ton of visitors through other keyword searches related to your business -- that is, if you have the kind of web content that matches their search query.

What does an outline have to do with this? Well, it makes the entire process of website content development much easier and more manageable. And this, of course, means you can write more pages and rank for more keywords and phrases. I generally create an outline before I write a single sentence of a new web page, and it's a strategy used by other professional writers as well.

If you only take one lesson away from this article, make it this one -- outlines make the process of web writing much easier for you. And they are simple to create. All you have to do is plan how you want to begin, the key points you want to cover along the way, and how you want to conclude and summarize the piece.

The idea here is to avoid staring at a blank screen on your monitor when it comes time to produce your new web content. If you follow my advice on this point, you won't have to stare at a blank screen (or page) waiting for the ideas to hit you. They'll already be outlined on paper.

3. Turn Off Your Internal Editors

Here's another writer's trick that will simplify the content development process for you. When creating your first draft of a new web page, don't worry about things like spelling, grammar, clarity and coherence. The first time through, focus instead on the ideas you want to express. Capture those in your first draft, and then you can go back through to address the other items in your second draft. The first attempt is all about capturing those ideas before they "float" away. So just write. Don't edit or criticize as you go along ... save that for the second draft.

If, after reading this article, you're still not inclined to create your own website content, keep our online writing services in mind.

SEO Copywriting Services - How to Choose

Are you looking for an SEO copywriting service to help improve your search engine visibility? If so, here are some of the criteria you should consider. Print this page and use it as a checklist when screening SEO copywriting providers.

1. How long have you been writing for the web?

If they say three years or more, keep them on your shortlist and move on to the next question. If they only have one or two years of SEO copywriting experience, you should seriously consider scratching them off your list. It takes several years to develop the skills needed to call yourself a professional SEO copywriter. After all, you're really balancing two things at once -- you are writing effective web copy for people, while optimizing it for search engines as well. It takes time to learn this balance.

2. Can I see samples of your copywriting work?

If they provide samples, read through them with an eye out for two things. First, make sure the content is well written, easy to read, informative and engaging. Secondly, make sure it is tightly focused around a certain topic and phrase. These are the fundamental skills every SEO copywriting service should have, so it's something worth reviewing. If they don't have any samples to show you, scratch them off your list. No samples means no experience.

3. How do you come up with topics / keywords?

An SEO copywriting provider should work with you to develop topic ideas for your website content. Those topics should be based on (A) your business model, (B) your target audience and (C) a thorough round of keyword research using tools like WordTracker and Keyword Discovery. If an SEO copywriting service says that it's your responsibility to come up with a list of key phrases, scratch them off your list. Keyword research should be part of the service they provide.

4. Do you have SEO copywriting success stories?

To achieve success in search engine optimization, you need more than good copywriting skills. You must also know how to build link popularity, how to optimize website structure, and other key skills. An SEO copywriting expert should understand how these things work together to produce solid rankings. And he or she should have a few success stories to share from past experiences.

Conclusion and Going Forward

The field of search engine optimization is open to anyone. You don't need to pass an exam or attain a certificate. Any John or Jane can put up a website and offer SEO copywriting services, regardless of their true experience.

You've probably seen the work of amateur SEO writers in the past. It's pretty easy to spot. These people crank out poorly written content that's over-stuffed with keywords to the point of sounding ridiculous. You read it and say, "Did a six-year-old write this content?" This is the work of a writer who thinks the search engine is the target audience. They don't realize that the search engine is merely a tool used by the target audience.

Of course, you can easily avoid this kind of copywriting service by performing some due diligence beforehand. The questions listed above represent the bare minimum. Ask the questions I've provided, review samples of the company's past work, and speak to them on the phone to see if they understand the big picture of online success. Trust your instincts and be a smart shopper.

Web Content Development Made Easy

by Brandon Cornett

The websites that achieve the best search engine results (highest rankings, most traffic, etc.) typically have plenty of original content. The web content on these sites is usually focused around a certain topic or group of topics.

This is the building block of search engine visibility. You must first identify relevant topics that people are researching online, the ones that somehow relate to your products or services. Then you must write quality website content to address those topics. This is where SEO success begins.

If you hire a web content provider you are relieving much of this burden. But if you handle the process for yourself, you need to start with a solid plan. Here's how to create one.

It All Starts With Keyword Research

To begin this process, you should spend some time getting acquainted with a keyword research tool. SEO veterans can probably skip over this section. For everyone else, here are some tips for developing a list of keywords for your web content development plan.

First, make a list of all the important phrases that relate to your business in some way. Start with the basic terminology used to describe your products and services. Next, start plugging those phrases (one at a time) into a keyword research tool such as WordTracker or Google's keyword research tool. Start with the short form of each phrase, or the "root." The keyword tool will then give you a list of related phrases people are searching.

These phrases and search counts represent actual Internet research that is taking place on a daily basis. They also represent the kind of website traffic you want -- people who are actively searching for exactly what you provide! Put your phrases into a spreadsheet and save it for future reference. You will refer to it, and even add to it, on a regular basis.

Building the Website Content Plan

Now that you have a list of key phrases that are (A) related to your business and (B) searched on a regular basis, you are ready to create some useful content around those phrases. To do this in a focused manner, you should develop a website content plan and use that plan as a guide when writing your new web pages.

Here's a simple formula for achieving this. Take what you know about your chosen topic, and break that knowledge up into at least 50 parts.

Yes, I said 50 parts. If possible, shoot for more. You'll know what's possible once you begin writing out your plan. It sounds like a lot of work, but keep in mind this is something you'll be doing over a period of weeks, months or even years. It is a perpetual, ongoing process -- it's not a one-shot deal. For example, you might write one page of new web content each day, one page a week, or a couple of pages a month. The pace is up to you. So when you break the content development process down like this, you can see that it's both manageable and realistic.

Let's look at a hypothetical example of what I'm talking about. Let's pretend I'm a real estate agent in Sarasota, Florida, and I want to start expanding my website with informative and keyword-rich content. I've decided I can gain a lot from local search engine traffic, and I know it all starts with having plenty of relevant content. Here are some of the ways I could start my content plan for 50 pages (or 20, or 30, or even 100 pages):

• 50 reasons to buy real estate in Sarasota (each reason gets a page)
• 50 things to love about Sarasota, Florida (one item per page)
• 50 questions to ask your agent about Sarasota real estate (one per page)
• So on and so forth...

I came up with these hypothetical examples in about 30 seconds. So you can see how easy it is to build a content development plan around certain key phrases.

Just remember, the topics you choose must be (A) something you know a lot about, (B) closely related to your chosen search phrase, and (C) directly related to the products or services you provide.

Don't be too rigid with this process. You can always adjust your website content plan as you go. The goal here is to have a general roadmap so you won't be staring at a blank monitor on Day 1. Even a general content plan will help you crank out new content on a regular basis -- blog posts, articles, tutorials, etc. Best of all, you won't waste time thinking of a topic to write about. You'll have enough topics to last you for weeks or more.

Other Ways to Organize Web Content

The key here is to have an organized and systematic way to publish your content. In other words, you want to write it around some type of framework. This becomes important later on, when you have a lot of information on your site. If you don't plan well in advance, it's going to become a jumbled mess for your future website visitors (and even for search engine spiders that try to crawl through it).

Article Libraries -- Also known as a "knowledge center," the article library is a simple but effective way to organize your content. In fact, you could distill your list of key phrases down to the most important topics, and write an article for each one. This gives you a wealth of keyword-rich content that's relevant to your business and the needs of your audience. Your main article page would serve as a table of contents. Nice and neat!

Glossaries -- A glossary is another great way to expand your website with keyword-rich content. Here again, you could write one page (a glossary entry) for each of your keywords and phrases. You can't get much more organized than a glossary, because it's in alphabetical order. It will also make your website more useful and informative to your target audience, and that's the most important thing of all.

FAQ Section -- This is another spin on the two techniques listed above, only here you are organizing your content into frequently asked questions or FAQs. This system of organization meets all of our requirements. It's logical and easy to navigate. It's a familiar format to your website visitors. And it allows you to create one page of content for as many key phrases as you want.

Time to Start Writing

If you've completed the steps outlined in this article, then that means you've identified your top search phrases and developed a content plan around them. So the next thing to do is start writing.

When you begin writing your new pages (articles, tutorials, glossaries or whatever), be sure to build as much value into them as possible. This value will come from content that is specific, useful, well researched, in-depth and easy to read. When you get stuck, just refer back to the content plan you created. If you did it right, you'll have enough topic ideas to keep you busy for a long time!

I hope this article has given you some workable ideas for expanding your website. Take a focused approach. Start by identifying the phrases that will bring you the most qualified traffic. Organize your content in a logical way. It's a lot of work, but it can certainly pay off in the end. Happy writing.

If you plan to write your own web content, I hope this article provides you with some useful tips. If you need help creating website content, check out the service listed below:

Website Content - SEO copywriting is our specialty! We deliver content that adds value to your website, showcases your expertise, and helps to increase your online visibility for key phrases.

Website Content Writing - My Lessons Learned

Article summary: What's the best way to learn website content writing or to hire a company who provides it? By taking some tips from a veteran website writer. Here come some now!

The other day I did some highly advanced computations to determine how much website content writing I've done over the years. Okay, so I guessed. By my estimation, I have produced somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 pages of website content (if a page of web writing can be defined as 500 - 700 words).

In all that time, and through all of those pages of website content, I've learned some good lessons along the way. So to spare you the trouble of going through this learning process yourself, I thought I'd share some of the things I've picked up over the years.

Website Writing Tips

Whether you are in the process of choosing a website content writing company or you plan to write your own content, these tips will serve you well:

• What you write about is much more important than how you write. A web writing expert cannot make a mediocre product or service seem interesting (without lying). On the contrary, a great product or service will shine even when described with average writing skills.
• Most people dislike reading online. They will scan the content and, if they are interested, print the page out. Make their job easier by creating summaries at the top of each page (like the one atop this blog post).
• Plain language works best online. Be a straight talker when writing website content and avoid jargon. Don't tell me something will help me "leverage my internal knowledge capital" when you can simply say it will "make my employees perform better."
• Hyperlinks are great, when used logically and sparingly. If there is a key topic within a sentence, and you have a page elsewhere on the site that explains that topic, link to it!
  
• Don't write for search engines. Write for people first, and then go back and make sure it's keyword optimized for search engine visibility. Search engines won't buy what you're selling.
• If you have not web writing talent in-house, outsource the job to a content writing company. Your visitors will judge you by the content on your website, so it's worth the money.
• Write your web content around the topics your audience is researching. You can find this out by doing some keyword research. In fact, that's the entire premise behind our content center approach to web writing.
• Create purposeful content for your website. First define the objective of your web page, then write your content to support that goal. Example -- this article is intended to educate you on the web writing services we provide.
  

If you plan to write your own web content, I hope this article provides you with some useful tips. If you need help creating website content, check out the service listed below:

Website Content - SEO copywriting is our specialty! We deliver content that adds value to your website, showcases your expertise, and helps to increase your online visibility for key phrases.

Content for Your Website - 3 Sources of Content

Many webmasters come to the same stopping point along the path to website completion. They get the website designed, put it online, and then realize they lack content.

Obviously, this will stop a website project in its tracks. You need quality content for your website in order to inform your audience, establish your brand, promote your products and services and more. Without content, a website is nothing more than a shell.

The question is, how do you find content for your website without spending endless hours at the keyboard? Because let's face it ... not everyone can create the kind of web content that performs well online. So what do you do?

Here are some of the ways you can obtain quality content for your website or blog:

• Use our services! We have been creating content for business websites and blogs for many years now, and we have built an entire business around it. Learn more here
• Use a freelancer through a service like Elance. This is also a good way to obtain content for your website quickly and easily. You simply post a project description, review the bids, and choose the content writer who seems best for the job.
• Use reprint content. You can also obtain articles from websites like EzineArticles and GoArticles. Here, you would find the content you want for your website or blog, and then cite the original author as required in the guidelines.

So there you have them -- three great ways to acquire content for your business website or blog. Regardless of how you come across it, the key here is to ensure that only the best content makes its way onto your website. People will judge you by the information your site offers ... not by the pretty design.

P.S. - If you have website that is real estate or mortgage related, check out our free real estate content for webmasters.

Capitalize on Media-Driven Search Traffic

Nothing drives Internet search patterns like the media. And if you're smart about the content you publish on your website, you could capitalize on this fact in order to increase your website traffic.

Here's a real estate example of what I'm talking about.

If you've been watching the news at all over the last few weeks, you have no doubt heard all about the mortgage crisis in this country, that has in turned fueled an economic crisis and talks of a recession. Foreclosures are at an all-time high, and many of the subprime mortgage companies are closing up shop.

As a result of all this media coverage, Internet searches for mortgage-related phrases have gone up considerably. In fact, daily Internet searches for Austin foreclosed homes and similar phrases used to be in the single-digit numbers ... but there are now dozens of searches for these topics each day. So anyone who owns real estate websites (like myself) would be wise to publish content that is tightly focused around these topics. For example, I've been an entire website that offers advice on Austin mortgage topics, and for other cities as well.

What does this have to do with you?

My point is this. It's important to keep your website content fresh, because doing so will help you increase your traffic levels over time. It's also important to keep tabs on national news and developments in your industry, because these things will determine Internet search patters. If you keep on current events, and your website content reflects this, you'll enjoy more website traffic ... and greater Internet success in general.