Creation of web content in five steps

Website design By BotEap.comCreating web content is a constant challenge these days. In fact, for many online businesses, the task of generating fresh web content on a regular basis is the stumbling block to the success of their website.

Website design By BotEap.comTo succeed in the search engine bids, you need new, exciting, interesting, and different content that you produce more often than your competition. If they add content every day, you need to do it twice a day to rank higher.

Website design By BotEap.comSimilarly, if you want to get your online business mentioned on social media, so that people tweet about you, then you need to have something new or fresh. People do not talk about old things, but about “the latest”. If your web business is going to be part of the social world, you need fresh, new content to stimulate such conversations.

Website design By BotEap.comWithout new and vibrant content on your website, you can’t participate in and benefit from the two key arenas of the web: search and social media. Also, you can’t go all-in on email marketing because you don’t have anything new to tell the people on your list; they only want to receive emails if you’re telling them something they don’t already know.

Website design By BotEap.comProducing fresh content is now essential for the survival of your online business.

Website design By BotEap.comHowever, the problem for most companies is that they run out of ideas. They fill their website with “everything” they have to say and then they can’t think of anything to write about. Bloggers face a similar situation: they start their blog full of enthusiasm and then after a few weeks they run out of ideas; Over 90% of all blogs ever started currently sit dormant, untouched by their owners who simply can’t think of anything else to say.

Website design By BotEap.comSo here are five easy steps to help you through the web content creation process, even if you’ve run out of ideas…!

Website design By BotEap.comStep One: Create a Schedule

Website design By BotEap.comIt doesn’t matter at this stage if you can’t think of anything to produce in terms of content, but having a schedule is essential. If you don’t have a written schedule of when you will produce your web content, it is unlikely that you will. In fact, having a schedule is sometimes all it takes to create web content! But what kind of schedule do you need? The answer is to check your competitors. If they are producing new content once a week, you need a schedule for twice a week. If your competition updates daily, you should update twice a day. In other words, do more than your competitors. Research shows that most website owners update their sites with new content once a week, on average. So your schedule most likely only needs to allow for two new content each week. Once you’ve decided on the frequency, determine which days and times are best for you. Then allocate a specific one-hour slot in your schedule for content production. Once it’s in your schedule, that time is no longer available for meetings or other activities, which means you have to produce some content.

Website design By BotEap.comStep two: do some research

Website design By BotEap.comFind out what your target market really wants to know. Use keyword research programs like Market Samurai or Advanced Web Ranking to find out what people are really interested in. Run surveys using things like Survey Monkey to ask your audience about the types of content they want from you. Also, try to get out there and meet your website visitors; Get to know them and discuss what they want in terms of content. You will find that creating web content is much easier if you really understand the requirements of your audience. Do not neglect the research to find out what content you need to create.

Website design By BotEap.comStep Three: Create Some Themes

Website design By BotEap.comBetween your research and your discussions with your visitors you will find some common themes. Now try to match these themes with the type of marketing messages you want to deliver. You should produce up to 10 different topics, which allows you enough different topics to cover the average month of web content creation. Now assign one of those topics to one of the time slots and then the next topic to the next time slot and so on. Now you know, for example, that the first Monday of the month you will be writing about your first topic. This gives you some focus and prevents you from getting “writer’s block” where you can’t think of what to write and sit in front of a blank screen…!

Website design By BotEap.comStep Four: Get Some Stimulation

Website design By BotEap.comYou need something to help you generate ideas. Therefore, organize yourself a method of collecting ideas. This could be, for example, a notebook, a page in Evernote, or a loose-leaf binder where you throw in some notes. But have one central place where you collect everything related to any of your topics. If you want, you can have a separate notebook for each topic or a separate folder, for example. That way, when you hit the scheduled time slot for a particular topic, you can go straight to your notes and see what ideas you have. Any time you have an idea, write it down in the appropriate place, even if you don’t plan to create web content on that topic for a few weeks. You can get ideas by following relevant blogs, news sites, and press release services in something like Google Reader, where you can combine sources from these other sites into groups that are categorized according to their content topics. That way, you’ll have a massive and readily available collection of thought-provoking ideas.

Website design By BotEap.comStep Five: Just Write

Website design By BotEap.comOne of the key problems that people creating web content face is staring at a blank screen or going on some kind of web browsing expedition in the hope of finding some pick-me-up. But if you’ve organized your topics and have your notes handy, you’re in a good position to produce something. But if you don’t start writing, nothing will happen. So instead of looking for inspiration or trying to produce something that’s perfect, just start writing something, whatever, based on the topic that’s appropriate for the particular time slot. It doesn’t matter if it’s misspelled, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make much sense, and it doesn’t matter if you think people won’t care. Just write something on your specific topic in the appropriate time slot. Once you have something written, then you have the raw material to turn it into much better content. One of the problems many people have when creating web content is that they don’t actually start creating anything. They sit there staring at a blank screen waiting for divine inspiration and then they go off and do something else when they can’t really think of anything. Simply typing something will start the process.

Website design By BotEap.comSo, there are five easy steps to help you through the web content creation process.

Website design By BotEap.comIf you want me to help you craft your timeline, your topics, and how to make your web content strategy and system perfect, take a look at my web content strategy and planning service.