August 27, 2007 21:26
Category: Writing
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In Part 1 of this series we have discussed the concept of website content planning and why it is necessary for any future website planning. In this part we will argue the point that content, or rather its strength, needs to be the central theme of website planning ahead of page design and link building.
Don't get me wrong. Both page design and link building are important but both have respective shelf lives that don't necessarily extend beyond say a couple of years or even less.
On the other hand, content lives as long as the website lives, and it is the content that gives direction to a website's expansion in tandem with the expansion in business.
Page Design
Let's take the page design first. It is the backbone of any website. Whether you have a simple page or one with stylish flash animations, the page design sets the basic layout on which to build the website.
Many large websites, especially the ecommerce sites, that want their visitors to take specific actions like making a purchase, signing for newsletter, taking a video tour, or suchlike often take recourse to usability tests like multivariate testing, A/B tests, and split tests to find out the best possible page design that can contribute to maximum conversion.
However, after a page is designed to the satisfaction and provided the design is maintained with the same look and feel for the entire website, which generally is a must, there is no need to tinker with it as long as there is no need to change it for reasons that may crop up in future.
Giving undue attention to continually fine-tune the page design as if that would bring more traffic is not a good practice because that sends the signal that the website is always under transition.
In this respect it is worth noting that when a searcher looks for information, he rather types in something like 'vacation trips' than say 'vacation trips with flash movie' as his search term.
Of course the fact remains that the search engine robots scoop up only the content part of a page, and are hardly bothered whether the page has a flash animation or not.
Link Building
Pundits will strongly argue that weighty incoming links are all about higher visibility in search results pages (SERPs). Such is the craze for link building that many debuting websites with hardly a content strategy in place go headlong for it. As a result it is not uncommon to find websites with homepage PR of 4 or 5 but very poor Alexa ranking.
Why does this happen? It is because these websites have hardly any content in them, and all their energy is spent in the pursuit of incoming links. Perhaps they pay fortunes to the link-masters while paying little attention to the quality and quantity of content.
Even if you are to concede that link building is a must, which surely it is, the point remains that the visitors will still look for relevant contents in the website. If there is no website content planning, any amount of link building will be a complete waste of money and effort.
If your vision is focused on perfectly matching your business with your website, you'll find that link-building is not a constant requirement. You do want it but only sporadically as and when its need is felt as a part of larger scheme of website planning.
It may as well be that when your website becomes a highly informative content-rich destination incoming links come automatically as references from other sites instead of your making any special effort.
Content Planning
This brings us to the inevitability of contents for your site as the only long-term bet to attract visitors. But simply adding piles of content will do you no favor. You need to think ahead and comprehend as to what your website should look like 5 years hence.
This is where the website content planning assumes significance. The idea is to ensure that your website perfectly reflects the business you are in at any point in time.
Since more and more people in the future are expected to turn online to extract information and make purchase decisions, you wouldn't like to be left behind with a website that scarcely matches your present business profile and aspirations.
Future Scenario
There are 3 important aspects connected with the spread of the Internet that come to mind:
- New technology is constantly evolving. This is opening up new business opportunities, which in turn is rendering old theories redundant. For example, after Google acquired YouTube last October, the popularity of video displays on websites as a marketing tool has increased manifold taking the place of once popular audio tools like podcasting.
- The Internet penetration is still very nascent in many countries including future powerhouses like India. As more people start using the net the demand for quality information will rise dramatically.
- In the war of attracting the most search eyeballs, search engines will depend on content-heavy websites to produce relevant search results.
Looking closely at the above 3 points, it emerges that only the fitter ones will thrive and survive in the online world in the coming time. In the Internet parlance, the fitter ones are those that are laden with relevant and targeted contents.
And that calls for incorporating a sound website content planning that will be in tune with the progress of your business well into the future.
In the third and last article of this series, we'll examine how website content planning is actually put to practice for a small business owner.
