The content on your website is just as important as your design.
Yet many business owners focus too much on the design and not enough on the content.
There are a few reasons for this. The first is probably that creating content can be difficult if you don’t create it all the time. That’s probably the case with anything in life.
If your content is not up to par you’re going to miss out on sales. You can have a great looking site, but without great website copy you’re going to confuse your visitors.
The biggest excuse I hear from business owners regarding content is that there isn’t enough time. It’s a legit reason. Business owners are busy running their business. There is not a lot of time to spend on content.
But doing the work is still important.
That’s why I’ve put together 7 content shortcuts that will save you time in creating content for your website.
1. Talk To Your Front Line Team
What’s great about creating your content that many don’t even realize is that you already have all the content you need…you just have to find it.
The first place to look for your content is to talk to your front line team. These are your sales and customer service staff – the people that talk to your customers.
These folks know your customer the best. Ask them to document common customer conversations.
Much of the content you need for your website will come from those conversations.
2. List Your Business Goals
With any marketing activity – and your website is a marketing activity – it’s best to start with your business goals. Usually these include certain sales and profit goals.
They also usually include things like doing good things in your community and sticking to your core abilities.
Use your business goals to help you make decisions about content. When you narrow your focus to your business goals the decisions about your content become easier.
That saves time.
3. Create An Ideal Customer Profile
Perhaps the biggest shortcut for creating great content in a short period of time is to focus on your ideal customer.
I used to work for a catalog company that sold footwear. We had a customer profile for every brand.
Having a specific person in mind will really help you with writing the content. Act like you’re creating it specifically for that person.
4. Have One Person Write It And Another To Proof It
Something that can happen within an organization is that too many people get involved in a project. This causes delays that will push your website project back into eternity.
Another common occurrence is to have multiple people write different pieces of content for the site.
This can work in some situations, but to make things smoother it’s best to have one person write the content with one person to review it before you send it to the owner for final approval.
5. Write Content Before Hiring A Designer
The biggest way to give yourself time to create content is to work on it before you hire a designer.
In my experience, it’s always best to get the content done first. It speeds up the entire design process because you take the time to layout the content on your site.
It saves you time in the long run during the content and the design process.
6. Write Down Your Sales Process
This should probably be earlier on the list, but we’ll put it down here.
Your website is your virtual online salesperson. They’re working for you 24/7.
It’s really that simple. The point of your website is to sell.
This is why you spoke with your front line team to learn how they interact with customers. You take that content and put it on the website so your online visitors have all the same information your staff would tell a new prospect in real life.
Understanding your sales process makes creating your content much faster because you don’t over think it. You just take the process and put it online.
7. Talk To Your Best Customers
Finally, talk to your customers to learn their language.
Ask them what questions they had when they were looking for their service.
You probably have answers for any question they might have had.
Take those answers and create your website content. Use the language the customer uses and you’ll create content quickly that will attract more of your ideal customers.
