7 Ways to Organize Website Content to Warm Your Leads
Here are 7 ways to organize your website content to help people understand your services and the value you provide. Once you organize your content properly, satisfied website visitors will be able to find what they are looking for and will be more likely to take the buying journey a step further. Your content will warm leads for you.
You May Think There is Such a Thing as “Too Much Content”
Is this you? You need your website to provide good information, and you want to be found in search. You have a lot to say, and you know that Google rewards you for having lots of content on your website. But you’d prefer to keep content to a minimum because “no one likes a lot of content.” You may also think that too much content makes for bad design. Good news: a large amount of good content is valuable if you know how to organize it. That’s one value of good website design.
Organization of Valuable Content is the Key to Communication
If you organize valuable content well, it will be user-friendly for reading and visually enjoyable. Plan out what needs to be said on each page and the best means for presenting it (copywriting, icons, images, video). The goal is to tell your whole story while making it easy for people to understand the parts of it they need.
Brainstorm What People Should Know.
Jumpstart your content: brainstorm through a list of things you want people to know. Don’t organize it yet. Just get it down on paper in bullet form. Random thoughts are fine at this point.
Eliminate What is Not Needed.
If you have content that most people would see as fluff, at any stage of their buying journey, eliminate it.
7 Ways to Organize Your Good Website Content
Make an Outline of Each Page and Use Headings
Include all the points someone would need to know and make sure the information is relevant to the page. It should be information you would expect to see on that type of page.
Plan the content as you would a high school essay, using a hierarchy of headings, subheadings, and content points. This will allow people to skim. People tend to scan web pages first to zero in on the part they need.
Now transform those points into sentences and paragraphs.
Use Visitor Expectations to Your Advantage
We all approach websites with certain expectations. We expect to find specific pieces of content in the header, footer, contact page, about page, and blog. Place relevant information in those locations to fulfill expectations and make room for higher level, meaningful content on the home page and services or product pages.
Include Meaningful Images
Meaningful images help a potential customer envision what doing business with you may be like. Stock photos are often used to help tell the story. Sometimes portfolio or case study images can be used to show examples of services or make a point. Videos are engaging and can spice up dry information.
Besides telling a story, images can be used in the design to help move our eyes through the content making it more enjoyable and engaging.
Place Important Points Higher on the Page
Yes, we can skim the page and then decide what to read. But, really, most people don’t get past the halfway mark of a page. So make sure the information you most want people to see is closer to the top of the page.
Remember, though, people who are seriously interested in your service will want to read further and get more details. Some individuals read more than others. The deeper content is for these people.
Use FAQs to Add Information People Ask For
Suppose you have a lot of information derived from talking with customers and answering their questions. In that case, a Frequently Asked Questions section will help you organize unrelated questions and answers efficiently. These are often placed in a drop-down section on a page or a page of their own. Visitors will seek them out.
Add a Search Feature
For many people, search is their preferred method of finding content. Search doesn’t need to be site-wide. You can limit it to specific pages or sections. For instance, if you are a non-profit running several programs and providing many resources, a visitor may feel overwhelmed when visiting your “resources” tab. Instead of deciding which program to look in, they could use a resources search bar.
Don’t Forget Hyperlinks and Breadcrumbs
Once you have the basic pages outlined, you have another powerful tool to simplify explanations: hyperlinks. Linking between pages or another website will allow your website visitors to see related information or further explanation.
Website breadcrumbs are the hyperlinks in the top left corner of your page that show where you are in the website’s structure. If your website contains subpages, breadcrumbs can keep your visitors visually anchored and able to navigate your site easily.
Pro Tip: Put Your Website Visitor in Control
Website owners tend to try too hard to make visitors follow a particular path. This micromanaging of user behavior is an exercise in frustration. It often leads to users not finding what they came for and abandoning the website.
It’s best to give visitors a clear outline of their options and allow them to follow the path they choose.
It is a good practice to monitor visitor behavior with site analytics and A/B testing to find out what they are looking for and how. Use this information to improve their experience, and they will be more likely to take action on your site. Those targeted improvements benefit the user and, in turn, your business.
Now, Create Lots of Good Content and Reap the Benefits
Creating good content is key to your website generating warm leads for you. Sometimes you need to say a lot to get your points across. Do be efficient about how you word things. Do weed out content that is not required. But don’t limit your useful content. Organize it to be helpful, and visitors will reward you.
An additional benefit of organizing lots of good website content is that search engines crawling your website content will understand your business. Knowing your company helps them serve you to the correct searchers. Adding good keywords to your content will help optimize it for search engines. Create well-organized, useful content and good keywords to help search engines allow you.
Need help?
At mhcDesign, finding good keywords and organizing well-designed multi-media content with copywriting, images, videos, and downloadables is what we do. If you need help with this, book a quick call to see if we are a good fit.
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