The other day I was with a client, training him in how to use his WordPress website. In the process of showing him how to create a new post, I asked him if he had some content that we could use, so I could show him how to format the text, some information that would be useful and interesting to his website visitors, and also answering the question “What to write about on your business website”.
A few days earlier he had received a newsletter from a partner company in pdf format, and he said he could use that.
This was great in that during the process I could also show him how to upload images and documents and show/link to them in his posts. So I asked him to initially add some text to the post and then I’d show him how to upload the pdf file.
Now, although pushed for time, he wrote a short paragraph along the lines of “We are please to present xyz company newsletter”! and then proceeded to ask me to show him how to upload the file.
I asked him if he could add more to the text before we upload the file, in order to give the website visitor more information on what the pdf is about, and he asked why?
There are two main reasons for writing more text about the document in this scenario.
1) Giving the visitor a reason to open the pdf.
2) Giving the search engines more reason to rank the post higher in their results pages.
Let’s expand on this a bit.
Give the visitor reasons to open the document
In marketing, the call-to-action is arguably the most important element of your marketing, whether it is in an advert, a flyer, an article, whatever form that marketing takes. However, just as important, is providing the reader with a reason to take that action.
So in this case, the question the visitor will be asking themselves is, “why should I read this document”. If that question isn’t answered, there is a likelihood, that the visitor will not open the document to see what it contains.
However, if my client were to read the document, and point out and comment on the content of the document, they are giving the visitor the answers to that question. In addition, my client would be demonstrating their expertise in their field, and giving the visitor more reason to take action and actually contact them.
Search Engines – What are they looking for these days?
Search engines need content to determine if the posts you create are relevant for a particular search term, if that content is not there the likelihood is that the post will not be ranked highly in their search results for that term.
However, if there is a good amount of text that is meaningful to the visitor and the search term, then the opposite is true and the post is more likely to be ranked higher in the search results. Search engines will also “see” that you are trying to help your website visitors by providing useful information to their users, and that is usually rewarded with higher rankings.
Conclusion
When you are considering what to write about on your business website, make it useful to your visitors, give them a reason to continue reading and possibly even share your content with their social media contacts, and the search engines will possibly reward you with higher rankings.