Web Content Development Seeks Every Ounce of Benefit

Web content development is more than just the creation of material used on a site. It is thoughtful planning about how to get the greatest benefit out of that content.

Content is an item on a Web site that doesn’t necessarily have to be sold, thrown out or returned for some reason to a manufacturer.

An item in a store must eventually go. It has to be sold because it occupies valuable space. If it doesn’t sell, the store naturally puts the item on sale and often keeps lowering the price until it is sold.

Good retailers usually make sure they have the right items within their inventory and have a decent track record of selling them, even though they don’t always get the price they want.

Web site content can sit there for a long time, even years, collecting page views and costing virtually nothing to occupy space on a server.
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Quality Content Development Mixes Interest and Importance

Online content development often becomes focused on what drives the most clicks to an article, but too much of a focus on clicks becomes pandering.

Pandering undermines the credibility of a Web site. Visitors start to lose confidence in the quality of the site as a result. The practice is not much different than the old bait and switch technique.

Traditional media newsrooms at newspapers and TV stations debate every day what stories should appear on page one or at the top of the news program.

They sometimes erupt into fierce debates about what stories to play at the top and how to present them. The headline, the photos and any adjacent stories become subject to debate.

A common content development strategy has developed for many of them that combines interesting stories with important ones.

Interesting stories tend to emphasize human nature such as personality profiles, quirky behavior, great achievements and the link.

Important stories don’t always attract much viewership or readership. One example is a city council or board of education that passes an annual budget. (more…)

User Generated Content: Let Chaos Reign?

User generated content on a site starts with one simple decision, which is whether to moderate the content or let every single posting go live.

UGC requires moderation for sites that want to maintain a degree of credibility with their visitors.

Moderation typically is a process whereby a site editor reviews a posting before it goes live to make sure it stays within site ethical, legal and quality standards. (more…)

User-Generated Content Can Hurt Site Image

User-generated content adds value to a site, but it comes with disadvantages for advertising and marketing as well.

The term user-generated content is popular among media sites and closely tied to the hyperlocal concept.

It is helpful to understand that user-generated content is not new or innovative, nor did it originate with Web sites, but it is an important part of any online operation.

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Content Marketing Examples: Home Depot and Lowe’s

Content marketing is a method for distributing online content that contains a direct and measurable benefit for the core business.

The starting point often is a business that obviously or subtly sells products or services via the content itself. That’s an important distinction to make because traditional and digital media businesses also distribute online content with direct and measurable benefits to themselves.

But in the case of media, the actual content does not contain the sales message. The advertising around the content does that job.

In other words, a newspaper article or TV clip about a crime or government action don’t contain sales material asking or suggesting that people buy advertising for that newspaper or TV station.

Instead, the most common way for media Web sites to acquire advertisers is through a sales staff that contacts current or prospective clients.

The two largest home improvement stores in America provide useful examples of how content marketing works to attract customers and sell products. (more…)

Online Marketing Strategy – 3 Goals, 8 Tactics and 1 Solid Plan

“Online marketing strategy” is a popular phrase that often is used to describe ways of generating large amounts of traffic to a Web site.

In the business world, the words strategy and tactics are often used together and sometimes mixed together so tightly that the meaning of one is almost the same as the other.

Let’s take a shot at what online marketing strategy really means and how it can be used to grow a Web-based business. (more…)

High Quality Article Marketing Still Helps Search Engine Results

Article marketing for SEO is a tactic that helps improve search engine results for a Web site’s most important keywords if it’s done carefully and done on high-quality sites.

In simple terms, it’s the practice of writing an article about your site and putting it on another site.

The other site typically specializes in articles written specifically for promotional purposes. Three of the survivors are:

1. HubPages.com
2. EzineArticles.com
3. GoArticles.com

Anyone interested in building site audience and search engine rankings to build their online business will go to one of these sites, sign up for an account and start writing.

Some of these sites require a minimum of 500 words per article, and some require much more. (more…)