Chances are you have heard the phrase, “Content is king,” from your marketing or search engine optimization team at one point or another in the last few years. It’s a valid statement. But with all of our talk about the aesthetics of your website, you may be asking yourself: “Why is content important to the first impression of a website?”
To put it simply, the content is going to communicate to users your services and why they should trust you. With a brick-and-mortar store, for example, during hours of operation anyone is free to walk in and speak with someone face to face and get to know what they offer. As your website doesn’t have a closing time, it is important that your content can communicate your business to your potential customers perfectly and clearly.
Let’s say your garage door is making an awful sound and you need it fixed quickly. As you’re researching companies you will have a list of questions running through your head. Do they offer what you need? Are they reliable? Are they affordable? etc. It’s late at night so you are unable to call someone to ask these questions, so you’re left to browse websites. The first website you look at offers very little information on their services and very few testimonials from past customers; it looks outdated and it is hard to navigate. Based on what you’ve seen, your first impression may be that they aren’t knowledgeable in the repair, the company is disorganized or the customer service is poor due to the lack of reviews. The website you look at next offers you a great explanation on the services they provide, the website is easy to navigate on all platforms and the website includes testimonials raving about their professionalism, knowledge and affordability. Which company would you choose to go with for the repair? The answers pretty clear. Your content speaks for you around the clock, so make sure it is saying the right things.
Although content is just a fraction of what goes into SEO, it is something that has increased in importance over the past few years. The high-quality unique pages and blogs increase the visibility of your website and increase social engagement.
Additional things to think about:
Some extra things to keep in mind when it comes to your website’s content:
- Support images with text. Infographics are great for communicating your business’ message and keeping the attention of your users. However, search engines do not have the ability to read the image, instead they rely on supporting content to explain the graphic content.
- Titles and meta data. This information is going to explain to users (and search engines) what your page or blog is about. The characters are limited, so you want to grab the attention of users quickly. Your descriptions should make you stand out amongst the competition.
- Use blogs to branch off additional content. Content creation is extremely important to your website, this way you can link back through your website and show search engines you’re constantly offering your customers reliable and relevant information.
We hope that this blog series on first impressions has given you a lot of food for thought when it comes to your website. Advanced Digital Inc. keeps all these aspects that we have discussed in mind, as well as more whenever we work on our client’s websites. If you’re interested in updating your own website in order to make the very best first impression possible, Advanced Digital Inc. is happy to help!