Content Development Consists Of More Than Mere Website ContentWriting by Nick on Monday, 30 of July , 2007 at 7:47 am
When we speak of content development, that could mean a few things, none of them at all unalike. But you don’t have to just think in terms of your website. Here are a few of the many forms your content development strategy could consist of:
Written content for your websiteBlog contentDesign contentPhoto and image contentVideo contentPod content (also known as audio or podcast)Navigation contentTemplate contentGraphic contentNewsletter content
Essentially, anything you would put on your website to promote or enhance your promotions of your business should be considered content. You can even include off-page content as a part of your overall content development strategy - and you should. Off-page content would be articles, back links, pay-per-click ads and other forms of advertising such as banner ads on related websites. Again, if it drives your online marketing you should consider it as a part of your overall content development plan.
Most of these content categories are self explanatory so I won’t delve into those. But let’s talk about navigation content for a second. This is extremely important.
Navigation content is defined as the content that links your web pages together so that your site visitors can navigate through it easily without a lot of hassle. That includes your navigation bar, of course, but it also includes your contextual links, anchor text, and such. You must put some premium thought into your navigation plan. It is vital that you do so.
You want your visitors to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. But you also want the search engines to find what they need just as quickly and easily, otherwise you could end up in Design’s Sandbox or ignored altogether. Your navigation bar needs to be crawlable. I have actually seen people use Flash navigation bars that are mighty cool and jazzy. You can have the fastest street car in the city, but if it isn’t street legal it won’t matter how cool your friends think it is when you are looking at them from behind bars.
OK, exaggeration aside, a crawlable navigation bar is very important. Search engines won’t crawl Flash files. So if you have a Flash navigation bar, ditch it now and replace it with a navigation bar that uses html and CSS. This is imperative.
Another thing to think about with your navigation bar is what you want your text content to say. When a visitor sees your links they have to know what those links are pointing to. What kind of content will they find when they click on that link? Don’t deceive them. Be clear about it, but do it precisely. You don’t have a lot of space in a navigation bar link. One or two words is enough, but those one or two words must tell your visitors exactly what they expect to find when they click the link.
Think along those same lines when you add your other link content as well. Contextual links get a lot more clicks than any other type of link. So be sure to add links to your internal pages inside the text content of your web pages. Do it naturally, not forced, and put some thought into exactly what the text content of those links will say. They must be descriptive enough that people know exactly what they will find on the other side of that doorway. Unlike navigation bar links, however, content links (or contextual links) can be as long as you want them to be. But don’t overdo it. A text link that is three paragraphs long will look silly. But you can extend it to five or six words, a complete phrase, or sentence if it makes sense to do so.
That’s enough for content development right now. But we’ll revisit this issue in the future. For now, I’ll be happy to entertain your questions.
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including Design, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
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