Content Is Still King
Posted by: DSL Web Team on: December 22, 2009
A RUMOUR DOING ITS ROUNDS
Word-of-mouth is the key that opens the door to your website’s success. Don’t ever think for a moment that if you build it, they’ll come. Talking to others about something is far more effective than blind reliance on search engine optimisation (SEO) tactics and techniques. Toe to toe, word-of-mouth will far outperform top SEO techniques all because word-of-mouth’s DNA is as viral as a rumour doing its rounds.
As people talk with other people about things – anything for that matter really, they will pick up quickly what they think is curious, interesting or something they need not because you’ve asked them to, but because they want to. If they find something that interests them, they’ll want to bookmark you, share or even link to your website. That’s when you start building up an online community of followers and admirers.
THEREIN LIES A PATH
The term ‘community’ is generally thought of as a group of individuals united by shared interests or values. When looking to promote your organisation using a website as communications platform, get to know your community first. It is only by listening, reading and understanding what clicks with them can you better understand and serve them with valuable information, develop relationships, resonate your ideas, create trust and build influence. Therein lies a path to your own success.
The cornerstone of any web marketing communications strategy, however, is content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn’t matter if all other elements are perfect. It pays to do some research on what’s currently an important topic in your community and using that to find a unique angle to fit your content into what people already like.
CREATE INTELLIGENTLY
Strive to inspire your community with real, exciting information, not just corporate propaganda about your own organisation’s mission statements. You need to appreciate that your community have their own set of opinions, interests and needs and that you might have some of value to say yourself. Creating content for them does not mean giving them a press release. It means delivering great content that talks to them and their concerns.
Creating content intelligently to build a following using the Web means making it easy for community members to come back to you. One way is to keep your content fresh. Update it regularly. Make it also obvious and accessible on your organisation’s website and don’t let any of it lie fallow. Create content also on a schedule so readers’ expectations of regular updates are met. When the time comes for a call to action to muster the troops, they’ll likely saddle up and ride with you.
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