Introduction

If your web content isn't attracting prospects and furthering your business goals (sign-ups, trials, sales etc.), it's not doing its job. Consistently creating relevant, fresh, and searchable content is critical to your website's success. However, simply updating your blog isn't enough. Your content must perform on many levels.

Effective web content needs to:

• Increase awareness of your brand
• Engage your target
• Forge a connection with your audience
• Generate and convert more quality leads
• Boost search engine ranking You might find that after the initial rush of a website launch, visits start to fall. Or, after years of website success, numbers are trending downward and it's not clear why. You have fewer page visits, and the visitors that you do have are spending less time on the site. If this is the case, your web content, and the way your website is structured, could be the culprit.

Developing a business website isn't a one-time event. It’s an ongoing process of testing, tweaking, and anticipating what your audience wants. Your site should evolve with your business, your industry, and current trends. This doesn’t mean that your website needs a complete overhaul (although you can definitely do this if you think it's necessary). Instead, if you apply even two or three of the web content and keyword strategies in this course, you’ll take a big leap forward in achieving some of your business goals. The course will also help keep visitors on your site with some small, but important, modifications to your website's structure.

If you have an active business website, understand the fundamentals of creating website content, and are now ready to take it to the next level – this course will help you get there.

The Evolution of Web Content

Your web content should not only communicate the most important features of your business, it should also attract and appeal to people who are looking for what you're selling. It is critical to understand who your audience is and how they find you.

In addition to your web marketing strategy (developing strong social media presence, participation in forums, visibility on review sites, and more), search engines also act as a matchmaker between you and your audience. But the way search engines have connected people to websites has changed over the years, so your content must change and adapt along with it.

In the past, people added keywords, backlinks, and other elements to their websites to increase their search engine page rank. The more relevant keywords they had, the higher they would rank. They would often supplement their SEO strategy with targeted ads. While this is still part of an effective web strategy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get the desired results.

Search engines started to notice that many highly optimized sites weren't providing real value to visitors. Pages were being stacked with keywords, but the actual content on the pages had little relevance to the search. Search engines, such as Google, started changing and evolving their algorithms to provide higher quality results for their users.

This means that small businesses have needed to adapt their content, SEO strategy, and website structure to continue showing up in search engine results. This course will introduce you to many of these innovations and trends. This course will also show you how to create content that appeals to your target audience and keep them engaged.

Here is your roadmap through the course:

Learning Objectives

By the time you complete this course, you'll be able to:

• Evaluate and analyze your target audience and conduct a website content review, giving you a clear picture of where you are, and where you need to be.
• Identify where you need to update the structure of your website and how essential pages are presented, so you can increase visitor engagement and keep them on your site.
• Recognize the importance of long-form content and pick tangible ways to incorporate it into your site.
• Apply long-form content strategies (Pillar, Skyscraper, and Ladder) to increase site visits and boost search engine ranking.
• Use online tools and audience feedback to generate new content ideas, including short-form content that will grab attention and engage new visitors.
• Identify ways to incorporate different content series (Welcome, Buzz-Building) into your overall web content strategy.
• Consolidate and implement your learning and plan future action steps, so that you can achieve the goals you set for this course and develop further. This course is delivered in 7 modules, taking you step by step through the process of evolving your web content, with the ultimate goal of getting more visitors to your site and increasing sales.

Each module builds on the previous module, so while you can skip around if you prefer, it's recommended that you work through the course in the presented order.

As you progress through this course, use the workbook to help you complete the Actions Steps at the end of each module.

Expectations

Before we start the course, take a minute to think about what you want to get out of it.

In the workbook, write down three skills you expect to gain.

Now that you're clear about what you want this course to deliver, we are ready to get started!