Content

Once you’ve established the basic design and functionality requirements for your site, it’s important to consider the content, including both web copy and meta data.

This should be informed by extensive keyword research, to determine the most common search terms which relate to each of your core product or service offerings, as well as the nature of your business more broadly.

Website content can be broken into two categories:

• Core pages,
• Content marketing.

Different kinds of pages are used to target different kinds of keywords, depending on what is known as search intent. This is what a user is trying to achieve when they enter a query into Google.

Core Pages

Your core pages are the primary areas of your site where information about your product or service is displayed. The key to correctly structuring the content on your site is to divide your business into different information verticals. For example, a hotel might have different service pages relating to their accommodation, dining, leisure and facilities verticals, as each of these will have unique keywords to target in order to gain organic traffic. Additionally, all sites should have a Home and About page, which are generally optimised to target traffic relating to the brand itself.

Service pages are generally optimised to target what are known as transactional search terms. These are keywords which indicate that the user is trying to make a specific purchase of a product or service. Examples of transactional search terms include hotel, restaurant or spa, as well as variations of these which relate to specific geographical areas.

The key is to choose the variation of these keywords relating to each service page with the highest monthly search volume. This then informs the content itself, as well as metadata, such as:

• SEO titles,
• Meta descriptions,
• Headings,
• Image alt texts.

Additionally, it is important that each page on your site has a unique keyword focus, to avoid making them compete with one another.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is then used to target additional valuable keywords which are not suitable for your service pages. These have what is known as an informational search intent. This is where users are seeking out a specific piece of information which indicates that they might be interested in your products or services, but they are not yet actively considering making a booking.

For example things to do in Northern Ireland. These keywords are used to build additional brand awareness, as well as improving your entire sites ability to rank on Google. As such, before you launch your new website it’s important to have a clear content marketing strategy in place, including what content you will publish, and when.