What are the benefits of a content driven website?

There are two approaches to website design. These are design-first website design as well as content-first website design. The former focuses primarily on the visual elements of a site, or how it looks to visitors accessing it from mobile or desktop devices. Content-first, however, involves placing emphasis on the development of the headings and body copy of the website that visitors will read to gain information before looking at the aesthetic side. Most websites are design-oriented, but there are lasting positive effects that a content-driven website strategy awards. We’re taking a look at four of these benefits below:

Stays current

A website that is constantly being updated remains on topic and current regarding what is happening in the industry. Search engine users want to find online information that is fresh and relevant in today’s society. Websites that were designed in the early 2000s, and last updated pre-2015, are five years behind and therefore cannot serve information relevant to the current socio-commercial times.

Highly sharable

Content-driven websites, nine times out of ten, facilitate aspects of content marketing. With regular content in the form of blogs being hosted on websites (covering interesting industry/company updates, video content, and promotions/events), multi-channel shareability is possible. For example, blog articles can be shared in emailers, on social media, in customer services, through instant messaging platforms, and others.

Remember that when you put your blog together, you need to keep in mind the following:

• Use Keywords. To start off, brainstorm one long-tail keyword that you are trying to rank for that directly relates to your blog topic.
• Check the Strength of Your Blog Title.
• Consider Your Blog Length.
• Write Accurate Meta Descriptions.
• Adjust Your Image Size.
• Add Blog Tags.
• Link Internally and Externally.
• Shorten Your Blog URL.

Good for SEO

Search engines – such as Google, Bing and the like – absolutely love websites that are content-driven. The more written content a website features, the more insight it should theoretically provide for the reader. Search engines also want to show the latest information relating to the Internet user’s query, and thus will be more inclined to show recently-uploaded web pages over older ones.

Search engines organise websites according to PageRank. This relies on the distinctively democratic nature of the web by making use of its vast link structure as a gauge of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google clarifies a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.

However, Google looks at significantly more than the sheer volume of votes, or links that a page receives. For instance, it also analyses the page which casts the vote. Votes which are cast by pages that are themselves “important” have more significant weight and assist with making other pages “important.” Using these as well as other factors, Google gives its views on pages’ relative importance.

Organic revenue

At the end of the day, a website is an investment and thus needs to contribute to the revenue stream of the business. By employing a content-first website strategy, linked to a solid organic content marketing campaign, the content being loaded onto the site stays there, and can generate interest – which could end up in a lead – for as long as the internet is around and your website is live. Remember: organic leads are free leads.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Like staying updated with the latest trends from your industry? Got a bit of writing or designing talent? See our accredited Digital Copywriting and Content Marketing course today. We’ll give you the skills and experience needed to forge a successful career in the South African digital marketing sector. Give us a shout for more info on any of our digital marketing qualifications.