Creating good web content

In my blog on “What is a website”, I describe a website as “a collection of web pages about an entity that are hosted as a domain in a web server in the internet and access through a browser”. The content of the webpages is called the “web content”, it may be text, images, sounds, videos and animations. It is the web content that the user/visitor experiences on the website. The main purpose of this blog is to describe how to create good web content.

Why people visit a website?

People visit a website mainly because they are looking for information, which is contained in the web content of the web pages. A visitor will stay on your website, if it contains the type of content that he/she is interested in. People will always like to visit your website if it looks nice,   the contents are great and provocative, and the pages are easy to navigate.  Other reasons why people might visit your website are that they want to contact you or they want to transact with you.

Content is king

This is the main reason people say that web content is the king. The good web content must have rich and quality information that will engage the visitor to stay. It is necessary to note that your website only has a few minutes to capture the interest of the visitor. The initial exposure helps the visitor to decide whether to stay reading, listening or viewing the content. Thus, the content of your homepage is very important and it must state clearly the purpose and the kind of content in the website. It must be good enough to be memorable and cause others to tell colleagues about your site. Website visitors do not have much time to read uninteresting materials.

In my blog on the Classification of websites by purpose, I explained that there must be a purpose for creating a website and the purpose determines the contents of the website. Therefore, creating a successful website requires know the type of information to be displayed, where to get them and be able to present them in a quality manner. Remember that visitors view the webpages from the top-to-bottom and left-to-right. Therefore, important information must be place at the top-left hand side of the page.

There are many sources of information that will make a good web content; its quality will be defined by your style of writing or presentation,

Sources of information

There are many sources of information for great ideas that can be used to create good contents for your website; however, one must be focus on the purpose of the website in order to gather the relevant information that will improve on your online credibility.

• Books and Publications

  Currently there are a lot of information and ideas in books, journals, newspapers, brochures and other materials that are relevant to the contents of your website. This can be gotten by reading them, filtering the relevant ideas and documenting them. Reading will also aid self-development, knowing that you can become creative by mastering what others have done.

• Using search engines

  Search engines can be used to search for information in the internet and use them like the books and publications above. Also, visiting other similar website will provide a guide to what others are doing and assist you in preparing and presenting your ideas. While visiting other sites, there is the need to have a critical mind to analyze other people’s ideas, admire the ones you like and criticize the ones you do not like. In all learn something from them.  

• Discussing with others

  One can get a lot of information by discussing with people who understands the topic that is being discussed. Engaging people who understands the purpose of your website can generate a lot of ideas that will help you to build good web content and improve on your creativity. This can be in the form of questions and answers, brainstorming, interviews and so on. You can also questions people’s view and assumptions in order to have more insight to arrive at a conclusion and improve the quality of your ideas.

• Collaboration and social networking

  Most social networking sites have discussion groups. Joining an effective and smart online community can expose you to a lot of information that can sharpen your ideas by collaborating with other and joining discussions. Social networking is a good place to discuss pros and cons of a concept and can provide a feel of how online users react to some ideas and so on.

Presentation of web content

The information gathered has to be transformed into web contents. The process is as follows:

• Brand Strategy: To present the web content, one must understand the brand strategy of the owner of the website; and develop necessary tactics to achieve this. One must understand what the business looks like and determine to position it better online. This involves identifying internet components that are critical to making the business a success. One must decide how the client will reach and communicate with customers, whether they will purchase products, read articles, subscribe to newsletters, and communicate through blogs and online communities? All these determine the features of the website, its menus and navigation.
• Creation of menus or menu items: This involves the filtering of the gathered information and grouping them into menus or menu items in line with the brand strategy. In doing this, you must focus on your visitors, what they need and present it in the best manner for them.
• Arrangement of menu items: Here, the menu items are arranged in a logical manner to make the website engaging, easy to navigate and professional. You must also focus on your visitor to understand how they want the information to flow. Conventionally, all websites have a homepage, which is the first page to be seen when the website is loaded, it must be designed to be very attractive with the right information like clients results, video and text testimonials, and other information that will have an attractive value. Other menu items may include About-Us, Product and services, Articles/Blogs, Client List, Case studies, Contact information, Biography and so on. These menu items must be presented on different page in order to give each page a different look.
• Website design: The website must be designed to be professional, attractive, beautiful, engaging, and be easy to navigate in order to gain the visitors’ attention and interest. Good use of images and videos are important.
• Web content: The website content must focus on the visitor’s interest and address what is in it for them quickly- it must contain the relevant information they want and illustrate how it will improve their business and live. To achieve this, good content must be developed in the form of products and services, business concept and approach, blogs/articles, and intellectual property, while constantly evolving. Sometime, a story may be used to convey a particular concept.

Importance of good web content

Some importance of good web content are:

• Good and quality web content will keep your visitors coming back.
• People are looking for information in the internet, good web content will expose you to search engines and it will make it easier for people to find you in the internet.
• Good content is the first step for a sale.
• Users want to be helped and/or entertained. This can only be provided through good web content.
•  Good content will make you to look professional in the net, and
• Good content will aid relationship. People will be wanting to contact you and/or perform some transactions with you.

All the above considered, I have presented how you can create and present good content for a website. I believe that with the information provided, you can make the content of your website to be very rich, that will engage your visitor and attract them to stay. Finally, do not forget that for your website to be effective in achieving its purpose, it must have good content that is  presented in a professionally designed manner with good navigation.

Thank you very much.

Augustus Zekaryah

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About the author

Augustus is a management, banking and business computing professional with over 20 years of documented success in the field. Augustus is recognized for the application of software to solving business problems, Software Project Management, Enterprise Architecture Strategy, and Delivery of learning solutions with focus on adaptability, Development and execution of business plans, General management and administration, Operations management and  Best practice development. Augustus founded and manages FirstPlus Integrated Business Solutions (https://firstplus-ibs.com.ng) as a Software and Business Consulting outfit that specializes in Software development and integration, E-Learning development, Business and Marketing Planning, Consulting and training.Augustus brings to his work a high level of energy, passion, commitment and humour. He is married with children.

Presented below is a list of other articles on websites that might be of interest to you.

1. What is a website?
2. Classification of websites by types of webpages
3. Classification of websites by domain name extension
4. Classification of websites by ownership

As you read them drop a comment because your feedback is very important to us. It will help us to improve. Regards…