The importance of content in website
Why is content important?
Although I do not deny the importance of design, the presence of quality content also plays a role in a website’s popularity. And being a content writer, I may be a bit biased.
The design is like the first impression, and it helps in attracting someone towards your website, but the content makes them stay.
Can you imagine yourself going through poor-quality videos because the website looks nice?
Will you keep reading an article just because the featured image looked great? I guess you won’t. The attractive design did its job, the article should now provide value for your consumed time, right?
Read more about featured images and how to create attractive ones.
And here are my five reasons why content is important –
1) Provides value
When users visit your site, they are looking either for products, services or information. Listing your products images will do nothing to help them until you have some product details there. That’s the content.
As per a Social Marketing Industry report, 43% of B2B marketers say that blogging is their most important type of content. Giving the users quality information they’re looking for, makes them stay longer and looking for more. It’s the tried-and-tested way to boost a website’s traffic.
Writing quality content, however, depends on your content writing skills. And if you can do it yourself, you’ll have the benefit of having exclusive content.
2) Brand Awareness
The importance of website content lies not only in providing value but also boosting your brand awareness. People come to know about you, your products and services through the content. Moreover, if they have a way to subscribe to you, you can send them regular updates.
Organising events, having celebrity interviews, case studies are all the different ways of delivering content for awareness. Those are the ways for people to remember you and your purpose. You need to convey the right message, and thus, the importance of quality content is far more than you may have expected.
“A brand is no longer what we tell it is, it is what consumers tell each other it is.”
— Scott Cook
3) For SEO
The Importance of content is even more prominent when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Search engines need content to rank your website. Pictures and videos all are good, as they pull visitors towards you. More the popularity, better would be your ranking position.
In fact, video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search results than only text, says Omnicore. But the crawling bots still need text, written content, to test your website. That’s why content writing is important.
If you were looking for a reason to pursue content writing as a career, well, you have got one. By targeting related keywords, you can tell the bots what the content is all about. And text also gives you the opportunity to link to other helpful content or products on your site.
The bots too take help of internal links to get from one page to another and index them.
4) For marketing
“You can sell to someone, or you can help someone and create a customer for life.”
— Jay Baer
And no one can ignore the importance of content in marketing a product or service. According to Business.com, 77% of consumers read all the information they can, before buying a product.
Reviews, FAQs, whitepapers, explainer videos and blog posts are all the different ways to keep your buyers informed.
Content marketing involves the creation and distribution of media across different channels including websites. And it’s a lot cheaper than traditional forms of marketing, about 62% (according to DemandMetric).
Moreover, posting valuable content regularly helps your SEO too, and of course, sales. 😁
5) Content is shareable
OK, that may look too obvious but not all realise the importance of content in creating the buzz on social media. When you have content on your website, you give people the opportunity to chat and debate.
These talks may even act as a catalyst to explode your popularity on social media. When your reader finds something interesting, he/she will share it with friends on Facebook. And a study by Hubspot says that 76% of people browse their Facebook feed to find interesting content around.
LinkedIn, however, said in 2017 that when it comes to audience engagement, their website is the most effective social media platform.
Read a bit about LinkedIn Marketing.
Textual Content vs Visual Content
Until now, you have got an idea why content is important in writing. Visual content, however, also is important. With the rapid growth in the use of social media sites, you need to explore what works for your audience.
Importance of content in the form of text would be more on Twitter than on Instagram. Then, people on Facebook would be more attracted to videos than those on Pinterest… and so on.
People share everything they like and what they share from your website should be captivating enough. In general, infographics can increase traffic by up to 12%. Also, in a survey by Social Media Examiner, 32% of marketers did say that visual images are the most important form of content for their business.
Also, people remember visuals for a longer time. Visuals help them connect to the object and thus, improves comprehension. However, most of the marketers still prefer original written content to visual content.
“Visual content is a preview, to your great content which leads to a great connection.”
— Donna Moritz
Thus, the importance of content writing remains. So, find a balance. Use visual content on homepage, landing pages and sales pages, but when someone needs more information and details, present text… just plain text.
Static Content vs Interactive Content
Both — static content and interactive content — have their importance and usage. Static content — text, images and other things which don’t change automatically — tell what you want to say. Interactive content — quizzes and surveys — on the other hand, tries to seek information from viewers.
Interactive content is more useful for marketing purposes than providing value to visitors. And as per a 2016 report by Content Marketing Institute, 53% of content marketers use interactive content in lead generation efforts.
Quality vs Quantity
OK, should I now keep creating more content or focus on creating quality content? It was a question I recently came across on Quora, which is the actual reason behind this article. 😉
Well, I would like to say that you should maintain a balance.
The importance of content you provide lies in its quality as well as quantity.
You can’t explain a concept well within, say, 100 words. Also, you shouldn’t try explaining how to click in 500 words.
Your content should be informative, but not fluffy. Also, posting a lot of information in a day and then going silent for months, may portray you as a spammer.
Instead do it a little, every day, every second day or once a week, whatever pleases you.
In short –
“Concentrate on quality, quantity can (and will) follow.”
— The Lazy Writer
That would be all the content about the importance of content. If you want to know something more, shoot your question(s) in comments.
Oh, by the way, here’s something more –
5 Content Writing Tools to Save the World
