Throw a net, catch customers

Having a website is a bit like going fishing. Your aim is to catch something, in your case, new leads to convert to paying customers, and the more the better right?

Google, and other similar search engines, are hungry for content. Their goal is to answer users queries and provide the best web pages that fit. While there are numerous factors behind what will determine the best web page for each query, in this article we will focus on ideas to increase your website content with the end goal of attracting more potential customers, who are looking for your products or solutions to their problems.

To come back to the fishing analogy, when you first start out on your fishing expedition you might opt for a fishing rod with a particular kind of bait, aimed at a particular kind of fish. In website terms, this would be a small website 2-3 page site, detailing a very specific service for a niche market.

There is nothing wrong with this approach, it can produce results, however it may be time consuming, and relies a lot on being in the right place, in the right time, with exactly the right answer to your potential customers query.

There is another tool in the fisher's arsenal, one which historically predates the fishing rod and in our opinion, one which yields far better results, both in fishing and in the online marketing realm. That is a net. And if you are using a net, then it makes sense that the bigger the net, the larger the catch.

So enough of the fishing talk and back to websites. What we are suggesting, put simply, is the more pages you have on your website, the better opportunity you will have to reach your potential customers on search and convert them to paying customers.

Growing your website content should be a continual process as opposed to a one off fix up. There is always going to be some new content that can be added, and search engines will love you for this, you are basically helping them provide better content, or answers, for their users queries.

To get you thinking, here are some ideas perfect for increasing the content on your site.

Article based content & blogs

Articles, blogs or other similarly formatted content is a great way to build content and works well as a support to your service offerings and products, allowing you to answer the questions and provide the information your potential customers are searching for.

The good news here is you don't need to become a avid 'blogger' in order to add content to your site. Blogs are a great method of adding content, but here are some other ideas, which may gel better with your site and target market:

• Articles or resources sections
• Handy hints
• Top 10 tips for...
• Case studies
• White papers

There are many more options too, which are really only limited by your creativity as to how you choose to label these regular content additions to your site.

Pro Tip: Link to these articles from your key service or products pages to increase internal linking throughout your site.

Landing pages

Creating additional landing pages based on your more general products or services and further refining them down to a specific request within your market helps searchers find the exact product or service they are after.

Instead of just having one services page, expand on this to have landing pages, more targeted at more tailored service offerings, that way, you cover the broad queries such as 'Accountant Sydney' say on your home page, along with some of the more specific searches users may make such as 'Tax Returns for Individuals' on your service landing page.

Accountant Sitemap Example:

• Home
• About
• Services
• Tax Returns
• Individuals tax returns
• Tax returns for students
• Bookkeeping
• Small Businesses
• Financial Planning
• Contact

In the above example, we show the sitemap for an accountant's website, with an expanded set of service based landing pages targeted at more detailed needs or specialty services potential customers may be searching for.

Pro Top: Test how popular a landing page is by running a paid search advertising campaign on Google Adwords or similar for 3 months to see how well the keywords convert to new leads.

Product Pages

In a similar fashion as the previous section on landing pages, your products can also be expanded by repurposing a product to a different market, or creating variations or packages with content targeted at specific potential customer.

Signage Company Sitemap Example:

• Home
• About
• Services
  • Shopfront Signage
  • Internal Fitout & Signage
  • A-frame Signage
  • Vehicle Signage
• Packages
  • Real Estate Signage Package
  • Cafe Fitout & Signage Package
  • Hairdressers Fitout & Signage Package
• Contact

Not only does the above example showcase individual services, but the packages can speak to those looking for solutions to their specific needs, including keyword searches like 'Signage for Cafe', 'Signwriter specialising in real estate agents' or 'Companies for fitout and signage for a hairdresser'.

Other Ideas

There are numerous other ways to increase site content, but some of the staples of web pages work well including:

• FAQ pages
• Testimonials
• Industry Resources

Research is the Key

On all of the above suggestions, performing good keyword research before hand, helps determine what volumes of search to expect and tailor your content strategy to what your potential customers are actually searching for.

Summary

To sum up quickly:

• More content allows you to target more users queries on search, the more the content, the better possibility of attracting potential customers.
• Regularly add content to your website, Google loves this.
• Do the research on your target market, what keywords and queries they use most and tailor your content to answer these questions.