Have you ever come across a website that has lots of helpful and informative articles related to their business or industry? You might have come across a beauty therapist with a range of articles about certain treatments, how to use products, etc. Although you may see an article for a new treatment and might go that particular therapist for it; quite often the articles don’t have any real benefit to the business. So why are they there?
Digital marketing is all about having a strong online presence and establishing yourself as an expert in your profession and industry. You need to be the ‘go to’ person whenever someone has a question on social media or search Google for a certain topic. So the ability to have a wealth of helpful information ready for anyone who needs it, when they need it, is an effective way of getting yourself noticed as a professional and reputable business owner who can be trusted. It’s also a great way of ‘standing out from the crowd’.
Let’s take for example, a web designer based in Essex. There are going to be a lot of Web Design Essex offering the same kind of service/product for every kind of budget. They will all have glowing testimonials and a well presented portfolio section so which one would make you trust them enough to make contact when you need a new website? The one with lots of helpful articles and information that’s going to help you and your business in the longer term?
From articles on branding and search engine optimisation through to social media management and online networking; there is a range of information that our web designer could share with the online community. All of which can be easily shared via social media (and hopefully go viral) or can be sent to an existing or potential client if they ask for specific advice at any time.
One benefit is that visitors will bookmark and return to the website if they need to know about something else. A new start up business may initially want general advice about website design and search engine optimisation but a few months down the line realise they need to be on social media but don’t know where to begin. Each of these topics can be broken down into smaller subjects so there is an almost endless supply of articles that can be written and updated. What better way of knowing if your web designer is up to date with market trends or the latest news from Google?
Another huge benefit is that inbound links to the website increase, something that search engines look for when they index a site and decide where to place it in the search rankings. As your reputation and expertise grows, people will be eager to share your content through their own websites, write a blog and link back or ask if they can include in their own directory. Each inbound link is further credibility, in the eyes of search engines, that your website has good quality content and will be found useful by the users searching for information.
One final aspect of search engine optimisation is frequency of updates. Everytime you update your website, Google and other search engines will send a ‘spider’ to scan the site and report back on what’s new. The more you update the website and alert the spiders that they need to scan it, the more up to date and valuable the search engines will see your website. So simply by posting a new article every couple of days you should see your website rank higher in any search results (this works for blogs too!).
Ultimately, you’re looking to create a relationship with your website users and social media followers. Being helpful and able to provide informative articles about issues they need the answer to quickly goes a long way to creating a strong and positive reputation.
