How much content does your customer need to read before doing business with you

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This question was asked on Quora.com and I wrote a small answer over there, but then I decided to do a bigger post here on my blog. So how much content does your customer need to read before he or she  decides to do business with you? First of all, do you really believe that your content can make a difference? I think for the sake of this blog post, and for that matter, even for the sake of future blog posts, I am going to assume that you take your website content really seriously and consider it to be an inveterate part of your marketing strategy.

With that out of the way, how much content is needed before the actual business happens? It depends on what niche you are dealing with and what product or service you are trying to sell/promote. Websites representing well-known brands might not need as much content as a lesser-known brand might require. For instance, Forbes.com might need less content to promote their business content section compared to, say, credible-content.com. Nonetheless, you will find tons of content on Forbes.com. Why?

The primary reasons why a well-known company like Forbes.com needs as much content as any other website are:

  • The Internet creates a level playing field for bigger and smaller players so it doesn’t really matter whether you are Forbes.com or credible-content.com when it comes to optimized content and better search engine rankings
  • People can access your content from all over the world and it isn’t necessary that in your part of the world Forbes.com is as well-known as in the USA or even in India

These are the reasons why Forbes.com requires massive amount of content just like any other website – it needs to convince its visitors into doing business with it and for that they have to visit the website again and again.

Doing business on the Internet is all about credibility and trust and these two traits can only be developed with lots of quality content.

It’s not just a brand that decides how much content is going to be read before people decide to do business with you. It also depends on the requirement. Here I will refer to the example I used at Quora.com

If you want to purchase an iPhone you are going to purchase it and for you the only difference is from where you are going to purchase. If price is not an issue you might straightaway purchase it from the vendor’s website or one of the major gadget e-commerce websites. If it is an issue, you might explore around websites like ebay.com or buy.com.

But what if you are not brand conscious and you just want a phone that runs the android operating system? There might be 100s of smart phones running on android and if you don’t have a preference you might have to read a lot before you eventually decide what make you are going to go for.

So in order to decide how much content your visitors need before purchasing your product or service you need to figure out

  • What drives your visitors to purchase the product or the service you are offering
  • How much information they need in order to make up their minds
  • How familiar they are with your product or service
  • How often they visit your website
  • How much trust and loyalty you enjoy among your audience

Once you have figured out these things you can easily make out after how much content or how many visits they will be ready to do business with you.

Can your SEO content writer improve your search engine rankings

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Your search engine rankings definitely depend on the sort of content you have on your website/blog and also the quantity if you face tough competition. Your content conveys to the search engine algorithms exactly what information your website contains. Than the search engine algorithms use their own logic to rank your content according to the keywords and search terms used by their respective users. On a basic level a search engine like Google.com ranks your pages according to

  • The quality of your content
  • The quantity of quality content
  • The occurrence of keywords and relevant phrases
  • The usability of your website
  • The number of “trusted” websites linking to your website

The importance of an SEO content writer

As far as an SEO content writer goes, his or her job is not only producing great content for your website but also arranging the text in such a manner that it is easier for search engine crawlers to crawl it, index it and then supply that information back to the search engine servers. There is a thin line that divides quality/qualified content and spammy content. Even when you think that you have got great content going for your website (most of us don’t intentionally want to publish spammy content) you might end up having suspicious content just because your SEO content writer doesn’t actually know how to create SEO content.

That is why it is very important to work with a content writer who exactly knows what he or she is doing and also has a performance record to prove that. Merely having an ability to use keywords again and again doesn’t make one an SEO content writer. He or she should know that search engine algorithms can also read between the lines.

Can your SEO content writer improve your search engine rankings?

Of course your SEO content writer can improve your search engine rankings because after all your search engine rankings are all about the content you have. Frankly content can exist in many forms and textual content (where a content writer gets involved) is just one of them. Content on your website can exist in the form of video, audio, presentation slides and images and almost all major search engines have separate engines dealing with them. But if you want to be found for written/textual content then your SEO content writer can make a big difference.

An SEO expert is totally different from a content writer. An SEO expert can help you improve your search engine rankings but he or she cannot help you improve your conversion rate. Your conversion rate can only be improved by compelling content: content that informs as well as convinces.

SEO experts have their own importance and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t hire SEO experts to improve your search engine rankings, but given a choice between hiring an SEO expert and hiring an SEO content writer I will always suggest you to go for an SEO content writer. This is not because I myself am a content writer and hence I’m biased towards them, it’s just that if you are hiring an SEO expert at the cost of an SEO content writer then you aren’t achieving much (it’s another matter if you already have high-quality compelling content but it’s not faring well on search engines – that again indirectly means that it is not high-quality content, but anyway, I digress).

With an SEO content writer – provided he or she really knows his or her stuff – you kill two birds with one stone (I’m not in favor of killing birds, by the way). You get a content writer that produces high-quality content and consequently improves your conversion rate, and additionally, he or she also gets the right people to your website from search engines and other online sources.

How to know if your content writer is effective for your business

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Let’s suppose you have hired a “rock star” content writer for your business website or your blog and you are really excited about your future prospects. You realize content matters and you take your content marketing efforts darn seriously. But you’re either not confident about your written skills, or you cannot persistently generate quality content for your website or your blog. So understandably, after lots of scrutiny you have decided to work with the content writer who sounds really promising and can actually deliver the message you want to deliver.

But how do you know if your content writer is really effective and helping you take your business forward and ultimately improving your bottom line? Frankly, gauging the efforts of a content writer is not as easy and tangible as evaluating your SEO efforts or click-through performances. Content writing is a process and it gradually takes effect and sometimes there aren’t even direct effects. You just know that something good is happening but you cannot really pinpoint what is the cause and since you recently hired a content writer so he or she must be the cause. Could be.

Gauging the effectiveness of your content writer

It is same as evaluating the performance of any other marketing and promotional activity. Before starting working with your content writer study your analytics. Take note of how your particular keywords and key expressions are performing and what is your conversion rate presently. Google Analytics allows you to study individual pages contentwise, hitwise and even conversionwise. Here are a few improvements you should notice if you have an effective and competent content writer working for you:

  • Your search engine traffic increases after a couple of weeks of regular content posting
  • Search engine traffic on important keywords and search expressions increases compared to the period prior to hiring the content writer
  • In case of a blog there is increased engagement: people respond to your blog posts and express themselves
  • Your content begins to go viral on content sharing websites
  • In 3-4 months people begin regularly sharing your content through their social media profiles
  • Your customers and clients are well-informed even before approaching you
  • More people are doing business with you

These are some good benchmarks to know whether your content writer is effective for your business or not. This exercise may become difficult if you are running multiple promotional activities at the same time, but even then you can define parameters to track individual activities.

Content that is not optimized does not add value to your marketing

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Have you been publishing exceptional content but still aren’t getting the sort of attention it deserves? Then it is not reaching the right people. People who really want to read your content never come to know of its existence unless you promote your content through proper channels. This can be achieved by optimizing your content for search engines as well as social media.

Optimizing content for search engines

I know this particular topic has been beaten to pulp by practically every “expert”, but surprisingly the majority of content publishers have no idea how to optimize their content for search engines. Search engine optimization is as important as generating quality content and publishing it regularly, if you want to target search engines for qualified traffic.

Here is how to optimize your content for search engines

  • Make a list of keywords and key phrases you think your prospective customers and clients are going to use in order to find your product or service on various search engines. It is very important that you leave your own judgement aside and think from the point of view of your customers (or clients). You can ask the help of your existing clients, you can use various keyword analysis tools available on the Internet and you can also hire qualified SEO experts to compile an exhaustive list of keywords and key phrases to focus on while creating your content.
  • Use the keywords and key phrases prepared in the above-mentioned list within the content you regularly generate. You can focus on three or four keywords at a particular time and keep generating content centered around them unless your search engine traffic has improved. Make sure you use your keywords and search terms contextually instead of simply stuffing them here and there. There is no well-defined density of keywords but use them as naturally as possible.
  • Use your primary key phrase in the title of your webpage or blog post. Your webpage title or blog post title is very important and that is why it appears highlighted as well as hyperlinked in the search engine results. Normally when people are using search engines they rarely use a single word or a keyword; they always use a phrase or a combination of different keywords. That is why construct a phrase that encompasses the real essence of your webpage or blog post and use that within the title.
  • Organize your content under various tags. Search engines look for the appropriate keywords within particular tags, such as

These are some fundamental search engine optimization vis-a-vis content steps that you can take in order to make sure that you can drive maximum traffic from search engines to your website or blog.

Optimizing your content for social media

The sharing dynamics of social media are a bit different from search engines. You have to focus more on the viral aspect of your content. So in order to optimize your content for social media it must be easily shareable, it must be highly interesting (not that your user content shouldn’t be highly interesting and informative), and it should be as concise as possible. This is not the case with every social media user but since almost everybody has highly active timelines they rarely get a chance to go through lengthy blog posts and articles. They are more inclined towards sharing videos, images, quick tips, slides and presentations.

Also, make your content easily shareable by using all the tools and add-ons available to you. You should also have a vibrant presence over selected social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, for example and consistently interact with your friends and followers so that whenever you post your content or updates they check it out in as many numbers as possible.

Optimizing your content is not a quick job. It happens over a long period of time. Whether you’re optimizing your content for search engines, for social media websites, or preferably, for both, it takes time and effort and above all consistency. Ideally the effort must begin even before you start implementing your content marketing strategy so that you have a ready platform by the time you start promoting your content.

Writing content for B2B websites

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Most B2B websites – if they want to incorporate content marketing into their overall marketing strategy – should have lots of informative content on their websites aside from the usual business content.

A slight problem is some executives and decision makers are too busy to go through lengthy chunks of text and some want to do lots of reading before they can decide in your favor. So you have to keep your business partners in mind while creating content for your B2B website.

To handle this problem you can either organize your content in such a manner that it can be contracted and expanded according to convenience, or you can create excerpts and detailed descriptions separately and your prospective business partners can go through them according to their preference. But be sure that even in your excerpts you provide all the necessary information that they require in order to make a decision. Preparing an excerpt doesn’t mean you leave the critical details.

You also need to be well versed with the language within your business sector. Professionals working within your particular niche are used to certain jargons and terminologies and they also have phrases that make them feel more comfortable while going through your content. If you really want to convince them that you are the person or business they ought to be working with then you have to speak their language. It is not as difficult as it sounds. If you are a professional well-versed with your industry lingo there is no problem, but if you’re totally new a little bit of research can help you. A language is after all a language, you just need to use some words here and there to convey that you are writing as an insider.

In order to achieve this you can create a separate list of words and expressions that are common in that particular business. Then practice using those words and expressions while creating random sentences and paragraphs (but make sure that they make sense). Very soon you will feel comfortable talking in a language particular to a B2B section.

This will also help you search engine optimize your B2B content because professionals belonging to that business use particular terminologies and search expressions.

Writing content for B2B websites is not markedly different from writing for other websites (technology, general interest, news, etc.) you just need to get acquainted with the language and you must also know what the decision-makers want to read before going ahead with the business.