Website Optimization Details: Off-site Content
Website Optimization Details: Offsite Content
TL;DR -Takeaways for the impatient)
- More and more often, people come to your website to confirm what they learned elsewhere (read more)
- Your offsite content needs to be a part of your overall marketing message (read more
- You can reuse your website content, but not as a cut-and-paste exercise(read more)
The verification visitor
Studies indicate that prospects in general tend to look in several places for information about products or services they may be interested in purchasing. More and more, visitors will come to your website to confirm or flesh out what they learned elsewhere. This means that, more than ever, your website needs to be focused on your ideal customer and on the tasks that customer needs to finish to make a purchase decision. Talk with your ideal customers and see what steps they feel are important
Your offsite content needs to go along with your other marketing and your website
When people have read one of your brochures or emails or advertising, have attended a webinar or followed you on social media, they expect that your website's look, feel, tone and message will not be different. You do not want these visitors to wonder if they're in the right place.
While many small business owners may shy away from the idea of marketing planning, this level of consistency doesn't require massive amounts of research, analysis and planning. Instead, a simple sheet that specifies how the company logo should look, the color scheme of company materials, the fonts to be used with text, and the tone to be used in speaking to prospects and customers is all that is needed. This sheet can serve as a reminder to your staff when it works on materilas and can be handed to web designers, graphic designers and consultants to ensure that your business turns a consistent face to your prospects and customers.
References:
Gshift on Search Engine Land, "Are you optimizing your off-site content?" (2016), https://searchengineland.com/optimizing-off-site-content-262516
Amanda Zantal-Wiener, "Do People Still Read? How Offsite Content Attracts Quality Readership", blog.hubspot.com (2017), https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/off-site-content-people-read#sm.001i5g2qaclqd2h10ue11zj4b6vpp
Kerry Jones, "How A Content Marketing Strategy Drives Your Bottom Line", Marketing Land (2015), https://marketingland.com/content-marketing-strategy-drives-bottom-line-150504