When potential customers come to your website for the first time, you usually have only seconds to grab their attention. Just think about yourself -- you're most likely a busy person, so you probably don't waste valuable time reading a book or article that doesn't immediately grab your interest. Your site, especially the homepage, needs to be memorable enough that visitors want to see more, then return again and again.

Simply put, content is everything on your website that people engage with. It's what sets you apart from your competition, and any site is basically empty without it. Quality content addresses the immediate question that most people have when they visit a site: "What's in it for me?" That's not a selfish question -- customers want to know what you can do for them and how you can improve their lives by your services or what you're selling. Well-designed sites give them the answers they're looking for -- fast -- and as a Fine Line client, we can give you advice, help you with brainstorming, or develop professionally written content itself.

Quality content gives new visitors valuable information about your business, services, and/or products. If a search engine led a potential customer to your site, you need to convince them that your products or services are better than all the other results they found. The more information they have, the more likely they'll be able to make an educated decision.

Once your site is live with excellent content, it's important not to rest on your laurels and keep it the same forever. Web crawlers such as Googlebots index a site based on a variety of algorithms, and one that's not updated frequently can be viewed by search engines as "dead." Content needs to be continuously produced and referenced for your site to be thought of as fresh.

Even with frequent content updates, be very careful not to emphasize quantity over quality. It's not in your best interest to put up second-rate articles with keywords stuffed in haphazardly. Yes, keywords should be part of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, but those words need to fit organically within the content. You'll naturally include keywords simply by developing content that answers questions or explains how to do something for the reader.

First and foremost, your website is your business's online representative. If you ensure that your content strategy is well thought out, you raise the chances of being recognized as a leader within your industry.