Creating Website Content

Content Is King

Let's talk about creating content for your site. As you may have heard, "content is king". However, we must realize that more than likely, your main concern is getting a web presence out on the web so that folks can find you and customers can interface with you. These days, even your present customers kind of expect for you to have a site. If you were setting up a site that concentrated on providing information or education such as losing weight, knitting sweaters or betting on the stock market, then the creation of your website would take quite some time to get all of that information together. Now, don't get me wrong, you still want wonderful content on your

site.  However, you're focus in not on quantity, it's on quality. You'd be surprised how much content you probably already have around you to add to your website. Most web presence sites have a home page, a contact page and an about us page. 

Here are some ideas where you can fish for content that you may already have available:

• Company mission statement / slogan
• Company brochure
• Company product catalog
• Current or Past Advertising - Space Ads, Flyers, etc.

Anything that you have provided to a potential customer is a candidate as content for your website.  For your home page, you need to emphasize what makes you and your product or service better than your competition's. Your product or service might...

• Cost less than others
• Offer a better guarantee than anyone else
• Provide special knowledge or advice that is not available anywhere else
• Offer special incentives not available anywhere else
• Your customer service might be the best in the business

Imagine Your Customer's Perspective

Whatever your angle, the bottom line in the promotion of your product or service is to emphasize what makes you special and unique. Another neglected area to find content for your site is to visit the website's of your competitor's. You should do this anyway in order to gain an insight from a marketing perspective. You can go to your favorite search engine (i.e. google, yahoo) and type keywords that pertain to your market. Put yourself in your customer's shoes when putting in keywords. What would you type in the search box if you were looking for you? Once you visit a few, your head will be spinning with ideas for content for your website.

However, do remember, that you wouldn't want to violate any copyright infringement laws. While it's perfectly legitimate to read from other websites and rephrase them in your own words, it's not Ok to just copy and paste content onto your website.

Getting Your Content Digitized

If you don't already have your content in digital form then here are some ideas for you.

For your images, you'll need either a scanner or digital camera and get the images into JPEG or GIF format since those are the most widely used on the internet.  For your text, you'll need a word 
processor, such as MS Word or a text editor such as Windows WordPad.