You have a digital presence. It only takes a simple website or one social media account to create a digital presence. And perhaps you have spent a great deal of time creating great content to distribute through your social media channels. With every piece you create you think about how to make it great. But when was the last time you thought about why great content is important?
If you find yourself becoming weary of working so hard on your content, or if you simply want to prevent content creation burnout, take a minute to remind yourself of what great content does for you and your organization.
Great content helps potential customers find you.
The Mall of America in Bloomington, MN has 502 stores. If you spent just ten minutes in each store, it would take you more than two full work weeks to see the entire mall. With that in mind, think about the 1.74 billion websites that existed as of January 2020. Granted not all of those are sites are selling products and services, but a good portion of them are. How is a potential customer going to find you in this great sea that is the world wide web? The answer is simple: search engines.
Search engines are tools that help individuals find the websites they are looking for. (The most well-known search engine is probably Google.) All kinds of sites show up in a Google search. Some are informational. But others are sales sites, sites like yours, from which customers will make purchases. When someone does a search, the search engine pulls up the websites that best match the search the person was performing. Even with just two hundred results the list would feel overwhelming. So the user does not get one run-on list. The results are broken up into “pages,” and only ten results, that is ten websites, make it to the first page of a Google search. What’s the big deal about making it to the first page? Of all the people using search engines, 75% don’t look past the first page of their results. Consequently, many companies strive to create content that will land them on the first page of a Google search. How do they do it?
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO is the key to creating content that shows up on the first page of search results. SEO friendly content is that which is designed to best fit the algorithms that search engines use. Great content takes into account SEO and is therefore more likely to land your site at the top of the list. When you come up at the top of the list, potential customers can find you and are therefore more likely to choose your product when they make their purchase.
This whole process comes down to having quality content.
Great content helps potential customers choose you over your competition.
The benefits of great content don’t stop there. Once your customers find you, what makes them choose your company for their purchase?
Today’s consumers are smart. They don’t just walk into a store and make a blind purchase. People today, young and old, generally do research before they make a purchase. In fact, 61% of internet users research a product before making a purchase. They take time to learn what they really need, what options different companies offer, and where they can get the best price for the features they have decided upon.
Great content can help consumers see the value in the products or services you offer and why you are a better choice than your competition. This is different from SEO optimized content, the stuff that helps customers find you. This content educates your customers. Of course, great educational content will also be optimized for SEO, but great SEO is not its primary purpose. Educational content helps your potential customers educate themselves about what they are looking for and what you have to offer. And hopefully there is a big overlap between the two.
To create great educational content, think about the questions your customers might have about the product they are considering for purchase. Help them understand the right questions to ask about a certain product, how your product meets their needs, and why yours is a better option than your competition’s.
Educational content is often the content on your website, blog, or about us page. But you can also educate your customers with tutorials, how to videos, or podcasts. The best means to communicate educational content to your customers will be different for each company, each product. But when your customers know the right questions to ask before they make a purchase and you explain to them how you can best meet their needs, you will stand out far above your competition.
Great content builds trust with consumers.
The more you help your customers, the more they will help you. You can help your customers by providing great content that they find useful. Some organizations fall into the trap of focusing their content solely on themselves and their products and their organization. But today’s smart consumers can spot advertisement disguised as content is far less time than it takes to create it. And they don’t like it.
Customers today are looking for a company that helps them, that gives them answers to their questions, that entertains them. It’s one thing to give away free samples from the front door of your store. But what really makes a difference is informational giveaways. Just like one tasty chip can move a person to buy the whole bag, giving customers information that they need, even when it doesn’t directly relate to the product you are selling, will make them more likely to purchase from you. Here’s how that works.
Take our customer “Jamie” who wants to get a dog. She goes online looking for information on the best food, how long the ideal daily walk is for each breed, which dogs will get along best with her children, and everything else she needs to know. Your company sells dog beds. But your content doesn’t just center around dog beds. In fact, you haven’t written a single blog post about the best sleeping accommodations for pups. But you have created pieces talking about which breeds get along best with children. You have another post about what really matters when it comes to canine nutrition. And besides that, “Fido,” a cocker spaniel working in your research and development department, has a twitter account in which he relays the daily laughs that come from working with humans.
Jamie finds all this as she is doing her research. She sees that your company is well educated when it comes to man’s best friend. She sees that you care about her family and want her to find a dog that will fit best with her kids’ personalities. And she also sees that you have a great sense of humor. Jamie likes you and your company. And that affection that you have developed by providing content, which has nothing to do with dog beds by the way, will make Jamie far more likely to purchase a dog bed from you than from another company. You could even put it this way: great content wins friends and influences people.
These aren’t the only ways that great content makes huge differences in your digital presence. In fact, there are so many that it would be hard to list them all out in one post. But hopefully we’ve gotten you thinking about how important the right content is and how much of an impact it can have for your company.