Marketing and Writing for an Online World.

By now, most people who know anything about the Internet know that content is king. Top websites are constantly adding more to hold onto their stake in the online popularity contest. I guess the question is what are you doing about writing your web content? It should be something that was planned out and is constantly being adjusted and increased. Has it been attracting the right people? Has it been attracting visitors at all? If not, there is a reason and the sooner you find out what it is, the sooner you can fix it. The web content you produce may not be geared towards the ideal visitor of your website, which means what you are writing is for no one and is not doing one thing for you.

Problems with writing web content can come at you from many different angles. No matter what it is you write about, there are always different approaches that can be taken to the subject. For instance, a website that sells mixed nuts should approach their content in a certain way. Their number one concern is to convince people to buy mixed nuts from the website, so all the content should be focused on that goal. Information found on the website should filter towards that end. Look at the people most likely to buy the mixed nuts. Do they like anything about mixed nuts other than eating them? Are customers interested in hearing about the favorite mixed nuts of famous people? Do they like reading about the health benefits of certain nuts? How about attacking the area that deals with mixing mixed nuts (with other snacks)? There is an amazing amount of different ways to direct your writing, regardless of how small you think your subject.

If you are trying to attract a certain type of visitor, then it stands to reason that researching likely topics of interest within the theme of your website is worthwhile. If you are attempting to attract beginner chess players with a website, then it would be a bad idea to talk about a highly technical analysis of a game between two grandmasters. Consider your target audience and try to write from an angle they would, could and should relate.

Not sure how to go about doing that?  Ask yourself these questions as you plan the web content:

• How do I describe the target audience of my website?
• Am I advertising to more than one group of people? If so, do I have areas for all the different groups?
• Does each page in my website serve a specific purpose?
• Can I describe my ideal visitor?
• Is my content relevant to my ideal visitor?
• Am I providing proof for my assertions?
• Is there a point of interest on each page?

If you still cannot figure out a way to reach your ideal customers, try relating it to a product, service or message that has had success with you. What was done to get and keep your attention? What did they tell you about? What did they show you? Maybe some of those tactics can be made to work for you.

If you want people to learn English, talk about how easy it is to learn it or talk about how hard it is without knowing the language. Either angle emphasizes learning English. One angle may catch more people than the other.

Creating great web content is about knowing which angle to cater towards the most for success and if it’s even worth having sections to handle other angles.