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The 10 Elements of Content Development All Business Owners Need to Know

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In today’s technological age, every business benefits from having good online content.  Every company is a content company, whether you are selling food, legal services or vehicles.  But what does content development actually look like? Here are ten elements of content development all business owners should know.

1. What is the theme of your content development?

When developing content for your business, you want to make sure you have a consistent theme.  Everything should fit within your brand. Additionally, customers should be able to recognize what company is producing the content.

2. SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is critical in a content company.  What’s the point of having great content if no one is going to see it? SEO helps your website appear higher in search engine results. Also, it makes it more likely potential customers will click over to your site.

3. Helpful and informative content

Your content should meet some needs that your customers have.  Whether it is answering frequently asked questions or adding extra information within your field, content should be helpful and informative. 

4. Content development needs a consistent voice  

Even if your content is being created by multiple different ghostwriters, it should all sound similar.  Your company should have a consistent voice across all types of content development. Furthermore, this is an important part of sounding established as a brand.

5. Comprehensive

Your content should answer any questions your customers might have.  Therefore, if someone comes to your website looking for an answer to a question, they should be able to find it quickly and easily.  Having a comprehensive library of information helps your clients and benefits you by keeping them around for longer.

6. Content development must work across multiple channels

When you are thinking about web content development, you want to create something that works across multiple channels.  It is not enough to just have a basic website. Therefore, companies should utilize all the platforms they have available to them, from social media accounts to blogs.  Having your content available in pictures, text, and videos makes it appealing to a wider audience. Finally, when it comes to content development, variety is key.

7. Design/ visuals

It may sound basic, but having a good design is an important part of having good content.  If you don’t have good visuals, people won’t be intrigued. Furthermore, if your design is messy or difficult to read, people will leave your website before they even start really looking around.

8. Call to action

Your content should include a call to action.  Whether that is buying something from your company or simply going to another page on the site, there should be clear direction about what a customer should do after consuming a piece of content.

9. Research

Your content should be informative and research-based.  Ideally, you want to be able to draw in people that don’t even know about your brand.  Additionally, by focusing some of your content development on creating informative blog posts, how-to guides, or other similar content, you can reach a wider audience (especially if you have good SEO alongside these things).

10. Updated

All of your web content should be up to date.  This can get overwhelming, but it is so important.  If someone goes to your company’s Facebook or Instagram and sees that it has not been updated for months, that does not look good for your business.  All content should be updated regularly, especially social media.

Need help with content development?

Web Content Development can help companies of any size create an individualized marketing strategy.  They can help with everything from SEO to branding to content creation. Visit their website to learn more.

Game of Thrones Marketing: Why This Show Is So Popular

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You’re probably aware that the premiere of the Game of Thrones final season has aired on HBO. Whether you’ve been watching it or not, it’s hard to ignore how big of a deal GoT has become. So far, it has attracted millions of viewers and won dozens of awards – and that’s no surprise. Why is Game of Thrones so popular? The TV show has an interesting and compelling storyline. On top of that, their marketing strategy is kind of genius. It is expertly and consistently tailored to reach broad audiences, cultivate viewer loyalty, and maintain high levels of engagement.

Why is Game of Thrones So Popular?

GoT Leverages the Power of Social Media

The use of social media on Game of Thrones is varied and well executed. Since the TV show’s first production, the marketing team at HBO network has continuously implemented effective social media campaigns. For instance, the TV show has its own Facebook page, twitter handle and YouTube channel to help increase the fan base, keep them engaged, and maintain interest.

To facilitate social media marketing, GoT has also executed another effective campaign; hashtag (#catchthethrone). The hashtag has allowed other brands, influential individuals and companies to ride on the show’s success wave and promote the series even further. As a result, the GoT has amassed a huge fan base and made the marketing of its final season effortless and seamless.

GoT Has a Production Blog

Aside from the social media campaign, GoT has put in place a production blog  – “Making Game of Thrones.” The blog’s sole intent is to help their audience keep tabs on everything that is happening behind the scenes at the series. It features event coverage, exclusive images, interviews with the cast and crew, and other superfan essentials. This has not only helped generate intrigue and suspense, but has increased excitement, conversation, interaction, and engagement among the audience.

GoT Creates Sharable Content

Whether on social media or their production blog, GoT content is well appropriated. Posts and links are strategic to maximize the ease of liking, commenting and sharing with others. The social media posts and YouTube videos, for instance, integrate memes, jokes and a plethora of other exciting materials. With the increased audience engagement, GoT has garnered more than 23 million likes on Facebook, 9.9 million on Instagram, 8.4 million followers on Twitter, and over 4.5 million subscribers on YouTube.

Consistency

Over the last seven seasons, GoT has released countless promotion photos, blog posts, trailers and videos on their social media channels and production blog. Their teasers and trailers are always painstakingly created to create excitement, buzz, and suspense. The result?  More than 33 million viewers remain glued on their screens every Sunday as the escapades of Game of Thrones season 8 unfold.

Increasing Accessibility

The GoT marketing team has made a continued effort to reach the global market. They have invested time and money in making sure that audiences in all continents access this epic drama in ways that suit them best. Besides dubbing it into different languages, they are now simulcasting the most recent seasons of the show across the globe.

Web Content Development

Hate or love it, Game of Thrones is currently one of the world’s most popular TV shows. If this level of achievement is something you’d want for your business, then you have to follow the same mantra of marketing; make and market your own wares better or somebody else will. The good news is, the team at Web Content Development is ready to help you achieve a similar feat. Contact us to learn more about our marketing strategies.  

How an Effective Content Strategy Can Extend the Lifespan of Your Website

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It has become common knowledge that a strong online presence is essential to a business’ success. That said, there is far more to establishing a strong online presence. This is more than through simply creating and promoting your business website.  Consumers find it is more frustrating to be faced with an outdated, poorly designed, difficult to navigate, and information-sparse website for a business than none at all. Fortunately, this can seem like a relatively easy problem to handle. You simply hire a professional web developer to help you create an outstanding website for your business. Then you can surely sit back and relax, right? Actually, not entirely.

Your Website’s Lifespan

Believe it or not, even the most outstanding website design has a finite lifespan. While industry professionals may disagree on exactly how long this lifespan is (many estimate somewhere between two to five years), they do agree that it is not very long. They also agree that a website’s lifespan is not fixed, but depends on what is done, or not done, to the website over the years. Fortunately, this means that there are certain things a business can do in order to successfully extend a website’s lifespan.

Some of the main factors that can shorten your website’s lifespan include:

  • Failing to evolve the main message of your business over time.
  • Maintaining the same content strategy without much or any variation.
  • Not being aware of or responding to industry changes.
  • Adhering to older website design trends, rather than newer ones.
  • Lacking the proper formatting necessary for proper viewing on personal electronic devices like smartphones and tablets.
  • Older content management systems that make changes and updates slow and difficult to perform.
  • A decrease in search engine rankings and search traffic.
  • Declining conversion rates indicating an inability to capture and hold consumer attention.
  • Competitor website redesigns.

Using Effective Content Strategy to Extend a Website’s Lifespan

One of the easiest and most effective ways to extend your website’s lifespan is through proper website content planning and online content development. In order to understand why this is so, consider for a moment why consumers search the internet and click on certain website links. Generally speaking, they are looking for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems–things that cannot be done simply through the design of a website but must be achieved through website content.

That said, throwing uploads of content on your website is not the best idea. Chances are that your competitors are also aware of the fact that content is king when it comes to drawing in new consumers and creating conversions, which means that your content will have to somehow outshine the rest in order to rank well in search engine results.

Important Points for Creating a Content Strategy

When creating an effective content strategy, consider the following points:

  • Find out what your target audience really needs and wants–what problems they are trying to solve and what answers they want.
  • Create unique, high-quality content that focuses on consumer concerns, not on selling your brand, your products or your services. Professional content writers are well-versed in writing unique, high-quality content that delivers the greatest impact.
  • Add fresh new content on a regular basis so that consumers are satisfied and always come back for more.
  • Consider the value of adding images and videos to spice up your content and make it even more attractive. If a picture is worth a million words, a video may be worth a million more. These are easy ways to engage your audience and deliver important information and ideas.

The key to extending the lifespan of your website is essential to keep it as in-sync with your business as possible. This means that as your business evolves, so should your website. Creating a content strategy and adding unique articles to your website is one of the primary ways to engage your audience.

The Phases of the Web Development Process

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In today’s highly technical environment, it is critical for a business to have a well-designed website.  The purpose is, of course, to provide current and future customers and clients with the information and answers they need in order to establish and maintain a mutually-beneficial relationship with the business.  However, one cannot simply “throw” an effective website together, especially since it takes a well-designed, content-rich website to increase SEO so that customers and clients can actually find the website.

Web Development

The web development process consists of six key phases:

  1. Collecting information about the business. An effective website is able to communicate exactly what a business is all about and what it has to offer so that readers are able to determine whether the business can be helpful to them.  It, therefore, follows that in order to build an effective website, the business must be very well understood by the web development team.
  2. Planning the website. Just with any other major building project, it is essential to first make a plan before building a website.  This includes what information will be presented, and on what web pages.
  3. Designing the website. This includes determining how the website will look based on the audience one wants to appeal to.  If a website’s target audience is adolescents or teenagers, it needs to look stylish and eye-catching.  If a website’s target audience is financial professionals, it needs to look clean, crisp, professional and loaded with important information.
  4. Developing the website. This is the highly technical aspect of website development, where the website code is written.
  5. Testing and delivery of the website. Once a website has been designed and developed it needs to be tested.  This is done to ensure that everything works as intended and there are no mistakes in design or coding.  Once it has been tested and repaired as needed, it can be delivered to the customer.
  6. Maintenance of the website. A website that has been well-designed and developed cannot simply be “left alone” from that point on and remain effective.  It must be maintained, which includes updating content, business information, product and service information, images and the code itself.  Some web hosts will actually refuse to host websites that are not maintained and updated, as they can become a security risk.

If each phase is properly carried out, the resultant website can be incredibly useful to the business–helping to establish and maintain strong relationships with customers and clients. If the process seems daunting, that’s where web developing companies come in.

We can help carry out all of these phases, as well as set in place a marketing strategy platform. Following these steps can increase your online traffic and as a result, attract more customers and create higher profits.

Contact us today at Web Content Development to get started and place your online business at a monopolizing tier.

What Should A New Website Have

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One of the most difficult tasks for business owners is attracting new clients. Even if you already have a customer base, your clientele must expand if you are hoping to grow your business. By partnering with a web content developer, you will increase traffic to your website, helping you gain the customers you desire.

Online reputation can be just as vital as local reputation. A website that houses your business in detail, with plenty of information, content, and photos to display what you offer is crucial to expanding your company. In this day and age, the internet can play an even more important role than ever before.

Learning and understanding the web will vastly help you grow more customers, as well as expand your branding to new fields.

What Is Web Content Development?

Through the proper organization and development of your website, clients and customers will be able to find your business more quickly during an internet search. Google alone processes 3.5 billion searches per day. That’s over 1 trillion searches per year. By adding the proper content and structure to your website, this vast audience will find your company quickly and easily.

What a Website Needs

Whether you are starting a new website, or revamping an existing site, a web content developer can help you gain business using the following techniques:

1.  Google Analytics: Amongst other beneficial features, Google Analytics helps businesses track and report website traffic. This data helps companies assess the success of marketing campaigns and understand where their traffic originated.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Companies can increase their standing in search results by adding fresh content and appropriate keywords to their website. This method uses the algorithms developed by search engines to optimize a company’s visibility when those keywords are searched.

3. Pages: Proper structure is key to the success of your website. Using multiple pages will not only make it easier for customers to navigate, it will also help search engines locate the site for its results.

4. Blogging: The importance of an active blog cannot be overlooked. The SEO process is greatly enhanced by loading current and fresh information while utilizing keywords. Additionally, clients and customers will appreciate the consistent stream of new information.

5. Mobile Friendly: It is important for customers to have access to your site, whether they view it on a phone, computer, tablet, or other devices. In fact, nearly 40% of internet use is performed on a smartphone today. By creating a site that adjusts to the user’s device, clients and customers will be able to properly browse your website.

Follow these steps and you will see your company expand while watching online traffic increase. Keeping these platforms will inevitably help your business more than you know. Let us help you reach these goals and lay out your marketing strategy for the best results.

Contact Web Content Development today to start making your website work for you.