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What's the Point of your Online Content?
It's a universally accepted tenet of online marketing that content is king. High-quality content builds value for current and potential members, and there's no doubt that search engines love to devour fresh material whenever they can. However, this doesn't mean all content is good content, and many less-savvy organizers fall into the trap of churning out content for the sake of it, with little more than a vague hope that this will be a fast track to success.
Increase Search Engine Visibility
One of the primary criteria on which to judge a piece of content is how well it can serve to improve your search engine visibility. With textual content, this means covering a range of keywords related to your organization, although it's essential to do this in a natural, unforced way. Producing well-rounded content with
Benefit the User
Of course, few websites are successful unless they please their visitors, no matter how much traffic the search engines send their way. Your content should inform, entertain, or help your users in a genuine way, or else it's a waste of time and bandwidth. Not every page needs to be worthy of a Pulitzer Prize or solve the problems of humanity, but if it doesn't provide at least some benefit for a reader, then what's it there for? Regularly publishing high-quality content is perhaps the best way of building a loyal user base, whichever sector of business you operate in.
Boost Your Marketing
Providing benefit for the reader isn't a one-way street. Even while educating or entertaining, your content can be performing a sales or marketing function — either overtly or as a side benefit. Most content can be tweaked to reflect well on your primary business, or even to actively promote a desired action such as a membership registration or event ticket purchase.
Lead Generation
Content can also take a much more assertive promotional role. Rather than tweaking your pages to add a little marketing spice, you can, of course, build content with an avowedly commercial purpose such as lead generation. Short pieces of content which spark interest can be used to lure the reader deeper into your marketing efforts, whether this is by encouraging them to submit their contact details in exchange for more information, or by simply making an excellent job of aggressively selling your products or services.
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