These 3 Mistakes Are Killing Your Website Content

Sep 2015

“We don’t know what to do. Our SEO is attracting website traffic, but it’s just not translating into new business.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that from savvy marketers who are at the end of their rope. For the key to this mystery, let’s turn the tables for just a sec.

I’d be willing to bet that at some point in your life, you’ve gone to the Web looking for a specific product or service, right? You type in your search, hit the Enter key, and review the options that popped up. Then …

You click on the first link, and the page is crammed with jargon and acronyms you’ve never heard of. Next!
You click on the second link to find five dense paragraphs of text. Who has time for that? Next!
You click on the third link to find a page that was clearly written by someone who understands who you are, what you need, and how they can help. Bingo!

So, what was it that turned you off to Contestants Number 1 and 2? Their content.

And you wouldn’t be alone. The biggest reason why people click away from websites has nothing to do with the design, the colors, or the font. It’s the content.

How did we get here? Why is the Web crammed with sites whose content amounts to industrial-grade visitor repellant?

The full list of reasons could fill a book, but here are the three biggies:

1. They dumped their brochure content into their websites.

I honestly think an angel dies every time a marketer says “Website content? Nah, we’re good. We’ll just copy-paste what we’ve got in the brochure.”

But here’s the deal: Your website is NOT an online brochure. It’s a customer experience, and if you don’t treat it like one, users will bounce away as soon as they arrive.

Believe it or not, reading online content is a different experience from reading print content. Online audiences scan before they read, and the same dense paragraphs that work just fine in your brochure will amount to reader kryptonite online.

How to avoid this pitfall:

If you must use your brochure as a guide, break the content up into bite-size pieces, and condense, condense, condense.
Break up longer content by including subheads after every two paragraphs.
Incorporate bullet lists wherever possible.

2. They overload visitors with information.

“Well, we do a lot of things, and we need to make sure visitors know about everything we do.” When this is the marketer’s battle cry, the result is usually a bloated, unwieldy site that makes you look like the proverbial jack-of-all-trades … and master of none.

The goal here is not to make sure every visitor knows about everything you do. The goal is to make each visitor knows you can solve his or her specific problem.

How to avoid this pitfall:

Instead of organizing and writing your site around the products or services you offer, start by thinking about the problems you solve for your audiences — then you can build in lists of products and/or services (for SEO purposes) as a secondary point.
Believe it or not, every conceivable service you provide does not have to be included on your website. Focus on your core deliverables. Once customers trust you to deliver those, inquiries about related services will naturally emerge.

3. They wrote it for themselves.

I find this issue comes up often in the healthcare industry. Doctors and other healthcare providers are quite passionate about their techniques, and understandably so. When they try to translate that passion into website content, the result can be a cacophony of terminology that only a med school student could understand.

Of course, this problem isn’t limited to chiropractors and hospitals. The more specialized expertise your industry requires, the greater the danger of alienating your audience.

How to avoid this pitfall:

Speak your customers’ language. For example, many doctors speak in terms of “presentation,” while patients think in terms of “symptoms.”
If your site needs to contain content for peers as well as for potential customers, give each audience its own section of the site and create your content accordingly.
Before you launch your new content, ask for feedback from friends and acquaintances who represent your target audience. I’ll never forget the marketer who once said, “If my mama can’t understand it, it doesn’t belong on my website.”

YOUR TURN: How do you ensure that your website content connects with visitors … and converts them to customers? Tell us about it in the Comments — we’d love to hear from you!

NEW TELECLASS!

Ready to learn more about website content that connects … and converts? Join us for our new teleclass, “Help! My Website Content Sucks!”

About the Author

A self-described geek who can recite entire episodes of South Park by heart, Rachel Parker has had a passion for content ever since she was old enough to hold a crayon (purple, please).

As Founder and CEO of Resonance, Rachel helps businesses publish content that connects with their audience … and converts those followers into customers. She’s also the host of the Content Marketing Podcast and a sought-after speaker, having presented to many major business and marketing organizations. Contact Rachel about speaking to your group or business.

1 Comment

Are You Writing for Search Engines … or for People? | Internet Billboards says:

September 29, 2015 at 11:57 am

[…] (By the way, this is one reason why copy-pasting your brochure content onto your website is such a terrible idea.) […]

Our Clients Are Saying

Professionalism and Sincere Desire to Help

I just didn’t seem to be able to find the time or the right words to explain what I offer and how my company helps people accomplish their goals. Rachel was able to ask me some questions, do some research and capture my voice while writing my website copy exactly as I needed it to be written. Now, the copy on my website is much more professional than what I would have created and having this task handled by Rachel and Resonance freed up my time to complete other tasks I am better suited to do.

It was a joy to work with Rachel. Her professionalism and sincere desire to help was apparent from the first communication until the final delivery. I will definitely use Resonance again and highly recommend their services.
Produced ROI Result

Form.io needed someone who could grasp the complexities of our product, capture the subtlety of our differentiating value propositions, and convey them in the right voice for an exacting customer audience…. Resonance delivered, by crafting a multi-faceted online content marketing strategy that drove traffic and conversion, producing the ROI result we were looking for….
One of the best “vendor” relationships I’ve ever had.

My company had little or no time to spend on social media. Our needs were to ensure a steady stream of posts across three platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) by harvesting and re-purposing content from our own site and news streams. So I contacted Rachel Parker of Resonance Content Marketing.

The result was two-fold. Not only did our ranks of followers grew steadily, the steady drip, drip, drip of content helped us train our personnel and direct their own individual social media efforts.

Rachel and her team are extremely organized and open to discussion and new ideas. They deliver a rapid response to new opportunities — and an overall feeling of being on the same team. One of the best “vendor” relationships I’ve ever had.
Increased our likes and interaction rates

Working with Rachel was a delight. Not only does she communicate very well, but she provided valuable insight about our social media platforms and followers. We have much better engagement with our fans and followers, which increased our likes and interaction rates.
Added 5 figures to my business in less than 4 weeks

Rachel took the overwhelm and stress out of writing content for my marketing campaign! When I approached Rachel, I was really concerned that I wouldn’t have the time to focus on writing copy for a lengthy marketing campaign that included sales pages, solo emails, newsletters and social media updates. Well, let’s just say I’m glad I hired Rachel because I couldn’t have done it without her support and expertise. I loved how she used my voice and words to craft content that helped me reach and attract my ideal client. As a result of working with Rachel, I added 5 figures to my business in less than 4 weeks, hundreds of new social media followers and exceeded my sales and list building goals! You know your marketing copy is working when you hear someone say, “I see you everywhere”. Thank you Rachel for helping me not only get seen by my ideal clients but get paid!
Social Media Ranking Better Than Ever!

We are so happy to have hired Resonance for our social media needs. We spend most of our time serving our clients and studying our field so we can provide the highest quality possible. We no longer worry about our social media, as we have total confidence in the wonderful work Rachel and her team have accomplished.

Our social media is active, promoted, and is ranking better than ever! People often comment about what they see on our Facebook page. Resonance has added a creative, and artistic twist to our social media that is appealing and captivating to our audience. This has allowed me more time to work with my team and clients, so I can focus on service towards the people that help our business grow.

I know there will be wonderful content on Facebook, and that Rachel will answer to posts, comments and questions as soon as a comment arrives. I am often impressed at how quickly she responds! Thank you Resonance! I highly endorse Resonance and encourage companies who need social media strategies to work with Resonance! You won’t regret it!
Event Sold Out Two Years In A Row!

Rachel worked with me on creating a content marketing calendar and content for the Big Social Media Summit (Big SMS) three years in a row. She is very organized and knows just the right amount of posts on social, email newsletters and content to send. Her content marketing efforts helping us sell out our event three years in a row! I am expecting the same for October 2014.

Rachel was hired to write content for our email newsletter and content for our social platforms. In addition, she had a budget to do advertising on social media. She participated in the event live and after the fact to assure buzz was created before, during and after the event. As a result, our event sold out.

When I work with Rachel, I have total peace of mind. I know that she is on target, on time, reliable and delivers over and above the results I expect.

I trust Rachel totally with her ideas on strategy, marketing and the content used to not only promote our events, but also post on my behalf on social networks. I have been doing social media for 8 years, and I hire Resonance to post on some of my social sites as it saves me time, and keeps my social sites relevant and current. They always post great, engaging content that gets my social properties likes, comments and shares.
Increased website traffic, New Lead Generation

We were experiencing a lack of internal resources to consistently maintain the Ustream blog. So we turned to Resonance Content Marketing to write blog posts on current industry topics while maintaining a consistent tone with the brand. The result is increased website traffic, new lead generation from gated assets on blog, and better educated/qualified leads. And I now have more time to spend on marketing strategy with the confidence that the content we push out is extremely well written and engaging.

Rachel is an amazing writer and has really managed to create engaging and relevant blog material on topics that aren’t always super interesting. On many occasions, she has been able to quickly turn around one-off requests and the results are always top-notch. She has also helped guide our content strategy based on her expertise in content marketing, which has been a huge asset to our team.