In our previous blog we wrote about how easy it is to develop a website using a platform such as WordPress.  What was known predominantly for blogging, it can also be used to make great websites.  Once you’ve created the site, there’s a few simple ways to make it effective as a marketing tool.  As well as creating sites for our clients, this is what we do to ensure their sites work as hard as they should.  Here’s a quick summary.

Use your keywords only when needed

Just remember – what you and your colleagues think of as keywords may not necessarily be what your prospective customers are using when they perform their searches. Do some keyword research into what words people are actually using to find your website, and your competitors websites.

Make your content social

Think about topics that interest your audience in general, those that both directly and indirectly relate to your business.  Create compelling and meaningful headlines that engage with people and make them react to them.  Pose questions and ask for feedback – people love giving their opinion!

Create a resource that’s highly useful

Make sure you create content for your site that is useful for your readers.  Focus on content that addresses topics your audience are interested in and give them a use for it.  This makes it far more interesting to search engines.  Videos are a great way of adding value to your site.  ‘How to’ videos are really popular, and are relatively easy and cheap to make and feature on a website.

Create content for other websites and blogs

If you’re writing a blog for your own site, why not write guest blogs that can be published on other sites.  This extends your reach, and can earn quality backlinks.

Regularly publish a newsletter

This is still arguably the best way to keep in touch with your customers on a regular, unobtrusive basis.  Content must be topical and timely, and not based on self-promotion.  This again lends itself to what Google and other search engines are constantly basis rankings on.

Although you should have search engine rankings in mind when writing website copy, it shouldn’t be your main focus.  In general, always focus on effective content writing for your site, blogs and articles.  Keep this in mind and you’ll achieve great content, and avoid being penalised in the rankings.

At Appletree we deliver websites for our clients that don’t just look nice, they perform.  If you’re considering creating your own website using WordPress or Drupal, get in touch to discuss making it work for you.