A major problem with many new websites today is that their content is geared toward a different topic from what their site initially started up as. For example, let us say a website starts up geared toward gadgets and technology reviews. For the first few months, you are getting exactly what you came for, technology and gadget reviews.
However, as time progresses the reviews begin to widen to internet technologies such as web development, emailing, and the likes immediately.
As a reader, you will not necessarily be interested in reading about web development or emailing as you visit the site for gadget and technology reviews, thus, you will probably begin searching for a new website to call home for your gadget and technology review source. Going back to being a webmaster, we will touch base on six tips that help you produce content geared towards your audience as well as tips to introducing new content away from the initial category or categories.
Content That Meets Your Audience’s Standards
When creating content for your website, you need to make sure it meets your audience’s standards, such as comprehension level, topics in their interest, and the likes. Let us continue with the gadgetry and technology example mentioned earlier. Let us say you own a gadgetry and technology review website and your audience range from teenagers to young adults interested in the technology world.
So for example, the content on your website should be written in a rather casual style without much sophistication based on the information provided about your audience. The content should as well be fully geared towards useful gadgetry and new technologies that your audience can make use of or fit right in their alley.
Due to your targeted audience being a young group in addition to the category you cover, your content should not generally be composed in a business-like manner but rather casual as mentioned earlier. With that said, by approaching your audience in a different monotone than expected, your audience will lose interest in the content and or website altogether.
Complimenting Your Website
Your content should compliment your website, which means that your content should be relevant to and or supplement the topics you cover. Think of your website as the introduction to, or the summary of, a book. The introduction gives the reader a general idea of what to expect throughout the book.
However, if the introduction does not compliment the contents of the book, it leaves the readers unhappy and rather confused about the entire book. Thus, your content should supplement or compliment your website to assure it is user friendly.
Skimmable Content
Most users never read your content thoroughly or completely but rather skim through it to get to where they may find it interesting and applicable to what they were searching for. Furthermore, by breaking down your content into short and understandable paragraphs or bullets, you make it easier for them to find what they were possibly looking for.
Additional enhancements to making your content skimmable are to highlight keywords that may possibly be in their interest or to create separate titles for several topics throughout. For example, let us say you have an article on the top ten friendly dog breeds.
To make the article easier to skim through, you would highlight the ten dog breeds you mention so users can easily find the breed they want to read more about or you can provide a title to each paragraph you mention each individual breed in.
Bloated Content
Your content should flow off the tongue naturally as if you are addressing the viewer personally. What this means is, your content should not be stuffed with “filler text” or bloat in order to address your message, but rather be direct and to the point to keep the readers interested in the topic rather than leave or skim through it due to useless and unneeded text.
Strengthen Your Argument
Whether you are reviewing a product, talking about methods to saving time, or how to properly mow your lawn, they are considered arguments, whether you have intended them to be or not. Arguments need to be backed up by other sources or facts.
A lot of times arguments are backed up by imagery or referencing facts your viewers may have never heard of which causes your reader to sometimes doubt about the contents authenticity or correctness.
Therefore, you should occasionally link to outside sources to back your argument to have your readers assure that your facts were not whipped up in a few minutes, but are rather backed up by other reputable sources. Not only does this strengthen your contents correctness, it also assures users that they have chosen the right place to read about certain topics.
Consistent Voice
From page to page, article to article, quote to quote, you want to assure your voice is consistent throughout your website and not contradictory. If users are finding out that you and your content are falling into contradictions throughout your website, it builds a mental image in your viewers mind that your website is covering topics its editors do not quite fully understand which leads to making your website an untrustworthy source to many.
In order to avoid contradictory content, go back and check the content you currently have that relates to what you want to publish, this assures that your voice is consistent and strong throughout.
While making your content user friendly may sometimes be a tricky challenge, it should be something that comes natural if the topic your website covers is something you enjoy and or experience. Additionally, users always tend to love to throw feedback whenever they can, whether be it on the topics you offer, topics you do not offer, your website layout, or even the frequency of how many times a week you post content or the length of the content.
Moreover, taking your users’ feedback and applying it is the best solution to making your content user friendly and targeted while showing your users that you care about their feedback and that your website is built around them rather than for them.