Q. Is your content current and interesting to your intended audience?

Not long ago the mantra for content writing was “keywords, keywords, keywords”, with little or no thought to the actual readability or usefulness of the article. Well, times have changed and the search engines keep getting smarter. While it is still crucial that your content include your keywords and phrases, you need to write smarter and ensure that your content is “human-friendly”.

The mantra now is to write for your human visitors first, and the search engines second. Well-written copy will normally rank very well with the search engines because they can generally tell when you are simply keyword stuffing.

Your copy should be reviewed and updated regularily to keep it fresh and current. If your site is a blog, post often! If you visit a blog and see that the last post was 3 months ago, how long do you stick around? Web content, like most forms of media, typically has a very short life. 

Q. Does your site speak to the search engines or to human visitors?

What good is a site with #1 rankings for all the right keywords, but an 80% bounce-rate because visitors have difficulty navigating or understanding your content? I have seen sites that are perfectly optimized for the search bots, but are nightmares to read. One site I recently worked on had over 800 lines of text on just one page! Who did they think would read that?

While search engine optimization is important to your visibility, your human visitor and conversion objective should always remain your top priority. 

Your website should have a clear objective. Be it, generating a sale, a lead, gathering emails, whatever. Once you have your objective clearly in mind, your content should focus on obtaining that objective and encouraging your visitors to follow your Call To Action.

Q. Is your content Creative, Original and Innovative?

Some people spend far too much time obsessing about their competitor’s website, looking for keywords and studying their wording, instead of trying to be innovative and creating something that sets you apart from the competition. Try finding a better way to word your message. What do you do differently, or better than your competitor?

When writing your site copy keep in mind your desired end-user and write the same way you would speak to that customer. Don’t insult the intelligence of your visitor by talking down to them. Or conversely, be careful to not write over their heads by using industry “insider terms”.

Proofread carefully and make sure there are no spelling errors! Nothing can reflect on your business as badly and quickly as a webpage with obvious spelling errors. It’s unprofessional and gives the impression of sloppiness, or a lack of attention to detail.

Keep in mind that re-using content from other sites without their permission is illegal and constitutes copyright infringement. If you aren’t a creative writer, find someone who is. Original content is what the search engines are looking for. If there is an article which you wish to reproduce on your website, obtain permission from the author first.

If you are really stuck for content and can’t find someone to write what you need, there are numerous sources of free-to-use articles on almost every subject. One such site is FindArticles.com

 Q. Does your site have a clear objective and “Call to Action”?

So you’ve managed to get traffic to your site and they seem to be reading your content, now what? Can your visitor they tell what action you want them to take? Do you know what action they should take? Do you have methods in place to track and measure that action (conversion) and your ROI?

Don’t assume visitors will know where, or what your Call To Action is, or will take the time to look for it. Make it obvious and where everyone can see it. If your objective is to sell an item, a clear call to action would be a bold “Buy Now” or “Click to Order” message placed where it can’t be missed. If your objective is lead gathering a clear “Contact Us” link should be provided, and it should actually work!

Don’t be afraid to test different wording and calls to action. The Google Site Optimizer is a great tool specifically intended to allow you to test different versions of your page and track the results. You might be amazed at how 1 or 2 word changes can alter the behaviour of users on your site.

I have tested this myself on one of my sites and found that simply changing my  Call To Action from “Buy Now” to “Order Today” increased conversions by almost 30%.

To sum up, keep your content fresh, well written, informative and include your key phrases and you are almost assured of ranking well in the major search engines.