Tag: content strategist

Why Website Design Is Important For SEO

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

If you are under the impression that website design and search engine optimization (SEO) are two independent activities, then it is not correct.

As a business owner, you must understand that both are related and any failure in recognizing the fact could adversely affect your business.

Aesthetics should be considered when designing your website, but it important to keep in mind the fact that website design encompasses much more than that.

It has the potential to impact everything from SEO and number of visitors to conversion rates and branding.

Good Website Design Is Important

The result of a study to determine whether the content factors and different design elements had an influence on the trust of visitors coming to the websites showed that website design is more important than content.

When the people who participated in the survey were asked as to why they mistrusted websites, the comments of 94 percent of the participants towards the website design elements. Only 6 percent of them made any reference to specific content.

Content Is Important

Website design might be very important, but content relevance and quality continue to be vital. When the participants of the abovementioned survey were asked as to why they trusted a particular website, the answers given by 83 percent of them revealed that content did have a key role to play.

People like websites that are informative, relevant, clear, unbiased, and fresh. Further, they like websites much better when age-specific information is given and answers to questions that come up often are provided.

Fonts and other typographic elements are also important, but the focus should be on delivering more accurate messages to your audience.

Anyway, overdoing these elements may not do any kind of additional good to your website. Too much content can mess up your web pages and affect the conversion rates.

Website Design Has Far-Reaching Effects

Both website design and content are important and they go hand-in-hand. However, it is the quality of design that attracts visitors to your website and makes them spend time and read the content you have provides.

According to website design and internet marketing experts, it is important to design your website, keeping the needs of your entire business in view. Or else, you will find it difficult to compete in the market.

Therefore, when you design your site to make it attractive to the visitors, it should also be kept in mind that it has the potential impact the other areas of your business.

Relationship Between Website Design and SEO

When creating your website, keeping SEO in mind, it is important that you think long term. Design trends keep changing, but the presence of your brand has to last for a much longer time.

Therefore, it is not wise to focus too much on the trends. It can cause problems for you. However, you should not completely neglect the prevailing styles.

To give you an example, a trending design style may be very attractive. Users may like the design because of the convenience the style provides. As a website owner, you may like to use the style because it keeps the users engaged.

However, what is more important is to determine whether the search engines like the trending style or not. As you remove the website structure that the search engines are traditionally used to crawling, you might be inviting problems for yourself.

On the other hand, you may really want to embrace the trending responsive designs for websites. This is because, in the near future, Internet searches are likely to be done more on smartphones rather than desktops and laptops.

There is a tremendous increase in the number of smartphone users around the world. Further, the search engines have started rewarding websites that invest in creating responsive web pages.

In addition to eliminating the need to run two separate websites and the risk of paying penalties for providing duplicate content, it helps you to greatly bring down the bounce rates.

The examples given above give you a fair idea as to why it is important to connect website design and SEO. However, there are a few other factors that need to be kept in mind when designing your website.

Website Design and Branding

You need to make a distinction between website design and branding. The design of your website cannot be considered as your brand at all.

Of course, it is a brand element that can help you to build trust among your target audience. Branding is actually an investment. It grows over time and makes people say that they have trust in your products and services.

Brands are perceptions and the elements of branding such as logos, trademarks, names, taglines, and packaging, are the shortcuts to reach those perceptions.

Typically, consumers tend to lean towards trusted brands. They will buy products and services when they are able to correlate with a strong brand.

As such, from the website design perspective, it is very clear that the elements of design you choose will have a direct impact on your overall branding strategy as well as market position.

Website Design and Conversion Rates

Website design also affects the conversion rates, particularly with respect to the elements listed below:

1. Navigation

It is very easy to understand as to how accessibility and navigation are related to the conversion rates. If your web site’s design is such that it presents challenges to the visitors, then they are likely to lose interest quickly.

On the other hand, an intuitive website structure will encourage users to remain on your site and continue browsing. Navigation assumes a lot of importance when there are several pages on your website.

Therefore, you need to include a menu that clearly shows the list of web pages or a well-labelled navigation bar. A well-developed navigation plan enables users to not only explore but also understand your website much better.

You are not required to use state-of-the-art typefaces at all. A simple and intuitive navigation arrangement makes visitors come back to your website again and again.

2. Words Used

According to experts, the words that you use in your calls-to-action statements have the potential to directly impact the conversion rates. For example, incorporating the word ‘Free’ when requesting visitors to either download something or sign up on your site often tends to increase conversions by about 4.2 perc3ent.

3. Colour

Colours do have a role to play in improving conversions. Research studies show that big, bold red colour is best suited for headlines. Navy blue colour helps to improve the feeling of trustworthiness when you use it in your call-to-action buttons.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important that you have a clear understanding of the impact of your website’s design on SEO. It is just not a simple matter of preference or making a minor choice. Your website’s design has the potential to make or break your online business.

It has to actually make a difference as to how your target audience perceives your business or brand and the visitors to your website need to be converted into your customers.

All said and done, using a design that provides an impressive and easy to navigate user interface will go a long way in enhancing your conversion rates, contributing to improving the bottom line of your business.

In today’s digital world, more and more businesses have started developing responsive websites to stay ahead of their competitors. So, the earlier you act the better for you.

20 Ideal Places To Share Your Content [Infographic]

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Content methodology involves processes such as research, identification, content creation, proofread, approval & publishing, social media distribution, etc.

But, are we promoting the content on right social media channels?

The answer might be a big no.

Writing blogs and publishing on your website does not guarantee you best content marketing results.

You know what, more than 3 million blog posts are being published by different websites daily.

So, if want to achieve any real traction, you need to think outside the box.

You need to look beyond publishing content on your website.

Think about sharing your content on industry or niche platforms to get it discovered by more people.

Here is an infographic illustrating 20 ideal places to share your content for better conversions.

places to share your content

A Guide to Hire the Best Content Strategist for Your Company

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Content Marketing is a rapidly growing field and, content strategist, a fast filling vacancy in many organizations in 2017. According to a survey by recruiting firm The Creative Group, Content Marketing is the top area where companies plan to add staff in 2017. You might have heard of the role of Content Strategist, of late. Maybe you have even decided to hire one. Before sharing the guide on how to hire one let us first look at what exactly is the job of a content strategist.

Who is a content strategist?

Content Strategist is involved in all stages of content marketing life-cycle. This includes market research, content planning, content creation, content distribution and monitoring. It is relatively a new job title and hence, is still evolving. However, a content strategist is definitely someone who

-has the bird’s eye view of the content required to meet your company’s specific goals

– can chalk out a plan to reach your business targets through compelling content

Here is a Guide to hire a Content Strategist.

  • Define the Job clearly in your organization

The first step is to define the position clearly in your organization. The role does not have a fixed scope and you need to know what you expect the content strategist to deliver. Do you currently have a content developer, a digital marketer and content designer? If yes, how will the roles evolve, change or overlap.

  • Skills to Look for

As must be clear from the description of content strategist above, he/she needs to have a wide range of writing and marketing skills with plenty of creativity and vision. Following are qualities/skills that a content strategist must have:

  • Storytelling
  • Creativity and vision
  • Project Management Skills
  • Knowledge of digital marketing
  • Content writing and development, copywriting
  • SEO skills
  • User Experience and Design knowledge

That’s a lot to ask for, right? Remember that a content strategist doesn’t have to be an expert in all of the above. What is more important is his/her ability to analyze data, gain insights and weave all the components of content marketing into an actionable plan. He/she must have excellent creativity, storytelling and project management skills  and communication. However, a basic level knowledge of other domains will also do.

It must be clear by now that content strategist is someone who has a varied experience under his or her belt.

  • Previous records & References

It is advisable to go through the candidate’s previous work. You can ask for samples or check the work they have done before online. The best past about content marketing is that all their previous work will be online and you can even check the success of it (check for number of followers, likes, traffic to page etc.)

  • What to ask

Interviewing the candidate should make it clear whether they have the required skills. Discuss goals and challenges that your company is facing and ask them for possible solutions. This should give you a fair idea whether they can solve the challenges and take you closer to your goals or not.

Where can I find the Perfect Content Strategist

We get it. The perfect content strategist might be hard to find. Not only does he/she need to have all the above mentioned skill and experience but may also need to have your industry knowledge. Consider looking at following places:

Within your Organization: Yes. Your content strategist might be already working with you as a content writer/ digital marketer. Look for project management skills and analytical abilities in your current employees. It is better to spend on training current employee who is a good fit rather than hiring someone completely new.

 Recruitment channels: Again look for required skill sets in various recruitment channels like recruiting firms or online recruiting platforms. Do not be stuck with the job title of content strategist as it is a relatively new term. Your next content strategist might be working under the job title of content manager in some other company.

Hire a Digital Marketing Agency: This is an effective way to have a digital presence. Digital Marketing agencies provide content marketing services while cutting out your investment in hiring, training and maintaining a team. They already have expert content strategist who have experience in handling hundreds of projects. Many companies are going with this option of outsourcing content strategy work to the digital marketing experts.