Information is the most valuable commodity available on the internet. People are looking for informative, practical information every day. This information is delivered in the form of content—blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts, and downloads on the internet. You can boost traffic to your website by boosting the value of the content on your website. Yes, content is still king. Those who have the best content get the most visitors. So, how can you improve the content on your website?
Publish new content on a regular basis
This is the single most effective way to improve traffic to your website. If the people who like your content see that you publish new content regularly, they will come back for it. These people will be your core visitors—people you can depend on. If your website is static (that is, if it’s not set up to publish content regularly), start a blog on the same website. Having a blog lets your visitors know that you plan on publishing regularly. Set a schedule and stick to it. Once a week seems to work great, but there are several options to explore. Publishing content regularly also enables you to keep fresh posts going out on your social media profiles. This is important because statistics indicate that 31% of all website traffic comes from social media posts. You can boost traffic to your website by regularly posting on social media.
Make your content appealing to human readers
When writing for your website, don’t make the mistake of focusing on attracting the eyes of search engines while forgetting about the eyes of your human readers. The real people who come to your website are a lot more finicky, and they won’t return if your content doesn’t appeal to the human eye. This means you should strive to have each page of text reflect the following:
- Use a large, easy-to-read font size—anything above 14pts is great.
- Include one or two images to illustrate the text.
- Make sure your paragraphs are brief. The white space between every few lines appeals to the human eye.
- Use bulleted and numbered lists. This helps you give people a lot of information in a small amount of space.
- If your content is long—say, more than five paragraphs—use headings to break up the text. Long blocks of text discourage the reader.
- Give the reader something to do at the end. Don’t just philosophize. Make your content actionable.
If people know your content will be easy to read and understand, they will keep coming back.
Offer the same content in multiple forms
The web was once a primarily text-based medium. But, today, the average internet user expects infographics, gifs, videos, podcasts, social media shareables, and other digital downloads as part of his regular browsing experience. This is a great opportunity for you to take old content and republish it in a different form. You can take a blog post and adapt it for a podcast episode; you can create a two-minute animated video highlighting the main points of the article and embed the video on your websites; you can put together an ebook from a collection of blog posts on similar topics. The possibilities are virtually endless. The great thing about it is that different formats appeal to different individuals: some of your visitors prefer video, others prefer audio, others like to read. With only a little more effort, you can reach a wider audience via your website.
Take some time to brainstorm the ways you can get new users and keep old users reading, watching, listening to, and downloading your content. Look at your currently published content and find ways to repurpose it. If you don’t have much content, get to work starting a blog today.