Develop a Content Strategy for Your Marketing or Website Launch
Content strategy planning is critical to the success of any project or website launch. When you plan out the steps that your potential clients will take on your site or within your sales funnels, you can improve your customer experience and generate more sales for your business.
Planning content for your entire website during a launch or re-launch can seem daunting, but you can plan ahead to create great content that brings the right customers to your site and looks great in your social media, email marketing, and PR campaigns.
The first step to create quality content for your site is to research the keywords that are relevant for your business. You can research keywords in Google Adwords by searching for your business or product. Look for the words that are most relevant for your business and have good search numbers. Create a list of 20-40 words that are most important for your business, in order of importance. When you prioritize your list, relevance should always come first. You can read the articles 'Why Does Content Matter in Digital Marketing' or 'What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)' for more details about the reasons for focusing on audience relevance in your website and marketing content. Once you've identified the keywords for your business, you can start to create the copy that you will use on your site and in your marketing.
If you write the copy for each page of your website one at a time you can break this huge project into manageable sections. You can prioritize your writing however you want, but people often write the About page first because it can be difficult. Working one page at a time, use the keywords that you already identified and write 2-5 paragraphs of copy, depending on the page. Some pages will naturally feature more copy than others. Use short paragraphs that are easy to read and understand. Explain concepts clearly; your customer does not have the same understanding that you do. Provide as much relevant information as you can to aid them in the purchase or sign-up process.
Once you are happy with the copy you've created, you can use a word cloud tool like the one found atWordle.net in order to see the words that you use most frequently in your copy. The more frequently a word is used, the larger it will appear in the word cloud. If you see large words in your cloud that are not relevant to your business, brand, or target market, edit your work and minimize the use of those words and phrases that contain those words. Repeat the process for each page of your site until you have great copy that you can use with confidence.
Content is composed of copy and images. You can get the images for your site by taking your own photos, using stock photography, or by hiring a photographer. No matter which option you choose, use images that represent your brand in a way that you want to be seen by your customers and audience. Beauty shots are great, but you can highlight the features of your products by displaying them in a setting that your customers might use them or by creating a product demonstration video. When you're choosing photos and creating videos, think about how you will use this content in your marketing. For example, images for Pinterest should be vertically oriented. Alternately, you may prefer horizontal images for your email marketing or another social media platform. Whatever you choose is fine, but plan ahead for as many elements of your social media and email marketing as possible and share that information with your web designer if you have one. It is much easier to plan these elements into your site upfront than to retrofit them once the site is live.
Finally, there is no such thing as static content. Your website should evolve and improve over time. As you learn more about how you want to reach your customers, update your website to incorporate those features.