The Basics of Website Content - 10 Tips to Keep Your Visitors

If you understand the basics of website content before you start creating your website, you won't risk having to duplicate your work when you decide to change everything. Here are 10 tips on the basics of website content which will make your visitors stick around and keep coming back.

Tip 1: Create a catchy name for your website, making sure that it does accurately reflect what your website is about. Don't call it Inexpensive Clothes for Baby if what you offer goes up to teenage and costs a king's ransom. In other words, don't mislead your visitors or they won't stay and they certainly won't come back. The same applies to the keywords you use.

Tip 2: Don't use colours that are too bright or difficult to read. Avoid flashing banners and too many popups, popunders or lightboxes. All these things can be irritating and drive your potential customers away.

Tip 3: Don't make your website too busy and crowded with masses of different adverts. This can be a bit mind blowing and drive people away. Choose one or two products to promote and from their promotional material, select adverts which fit with your theme.

Tip 4: One of the most important basics of website content is ensuring that your website is easy to navigate. Make your menu clear and easy to follow and make sure that your Home page is listed on it. If someone gets lost on your website, they won't hit the back button, they'll just leave!

Tip 5: Provide useful information which is created for real people to read. Don't create content which is too stuffed with keywords and aimed solely at the search engines. The real people will leave and the search engines probably won't list your site anyway.

Tip 6: One of the basics of website content which people overlook is the fact that their visitors are nearly always looking for a solution to a problem either in terms of information or buying a product. Think what your potential customer might want to know or what problem they may need to solve. Having done that, make sure that your product fits the bill; there's no point advertising something that nobody wants to buy.

Tip 7: Make yourself human. Publish your contact details or provide a contact form. Publish your photograph and a short biography which links you to the topic of your website. People will relate to you in this way and you will be able to build up a rapport.

Tip 8: Use photographs or illustrations if they would be appropriate to your product. Buyers respond well to images.

Tip 9: Make sure that your articles aren't too "salesy". If you constantly refer to the product that you're trying to sell, it will be very off putting. However, if you want to write about a specific product, do so in the form of an impartial review. You might even make comparisons with other similar products.

Tip 10: Create an opt-in mailing list. Publish a form on your site where your visitors can sign up to emailed newsletters. In this way, you can keep in touch and maybe make sales in the future.

If you follow these basics of website content, you will end up with an attractive clean-looking site which will encourage your visitors to browse around and come back often.

Ella McGinley is an experienced internet marketer who wants to help internet newbies create and develop their internet businesses. For more on the basics of website content and marketing strategies, visit Ella's website Home Internet Business.