Your Content Marketing Strategy includes your entire website
It is almost inevitable. A new client is interested in creating a great content strategy. After a kickoff phone call, they inform us that they just launched a new website, and are now ready to dive into their content marketing strategy.
My heart sinks.
They have just launched a new website, and now are planning their content strategy. It’s almost like fishing. It’s like going fishing. The bait is the content strategy for new thought leadership, but the hooks and sticks that make up the rest of the website are just afterthoughts.
We’ve been focusing on video and blog content for so long as the pillars in content marketing.
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They aren’t.
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Your content marketing success depends on your website, the information architecture that underpins your navigation and user flows.
You could lose traffic and converts if your website’s navigational systems aren’t clear and optimized for search. You won’t catch any fish without hooks or fishing poles.
Learn the strategy behind information architecture and how to optimize your site for increased user engagement and inbound visitors.
Your Content Strategy Begin with Your Availability Assessment
Before you can publish content to your website, you need to first understand your target audience and how you will organize it. This is where your information architecture(IA) comes in. This is how visitors to your site will find the content they are looking for and take actions (conversions).
Your IA can control the way your content is used
- Organized in the navigation bar
- Labeled with breadcrumbs or other links
- Navigate to other pages
- Users searched for
“When we created our new website, we knew it had to be optimized for search engines and conversions right from the start,” Nick Phillips, cofounder of Kids Art Box. A subscription box service. “The key was to begin with solid information architecture.”
Is IA the exact same as UX?
Information architecture and user experiences are similar because they both help to create a positive experience on your website. Before a UX designer can create pages, however, an IA must be established.
Content strategists convert a website’s IA to sitemaps. This plan can then be used by a UX designer during the website creation process. Marketers and web designers can work together to create an engaging and user-friendly architecture. Your site should be easy to navigate.
Every business can benefit from optimizing their information architecture. Users will leave your site if they can’t find what they are looking for. This can affect your website’s bounce rate, cause a bad impression of your brand and, most importantly, it could result in lost opportunities for new customers.
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How to Fuel Your Site Structure with Sales Funnels
It is important to understand the sales funnel and the steps that potential customers take through it before designing your information architecture. Google and users will look at your IA as the solutions that you offer customers.
Users who visit your main pages (such as the product or services pages) are most likely to take some type of buying action. This could be to either buy something online or fill out a form. These pages often have high conversion rates. You must make sure that your content is focused on the right keywords. These should be closer to the buying stage than the thought leadership stage. The right hooks are essential.
The majority of your blog content and owned media content will be focused on thought leadership topics. It will give people at the top of the funnel useful information that they can use to narrow down their search. You should consider topics that are relevant to your niche and something that would be of interest to repeat customers when brainstorming blog ideas. You can share tips and tricks on using the products that you sell, or industry news.
This thought leadership can be combined with pages on your website and understanding their interactions can help you find the path of least resistance. Find out where your visitors are at the sales funnel to provide content that meets their needs. With this information, you can use calls to action or other navigation to grab their attention and guide them along the journey.
Your goal is to find out what it takes to get someone at the top of the funnel to read a blog, visit more pages, then be encouraged and said, “Yeah! I’m ready for buying!”
Melissa Dreyer, Director Marketing at STANLEY Access Technologies says that “tightly knitting together new thinking leadership with optimized product/services page is essential for the success of content marketing strategies.” “Without these components working together you could end up having a lot traffic but not many conversions.”
Tips to Present a Organized Site
Although information architecture might seem complex, it is actually quite simple to create. It’s important to think about what makes sense for your website when it comes to organizing pages.
These tips will help you build your IA.
- Keep it simple.Your site navigation should be simple and intuitive. You don’t want to add any distractions that make it difficult for your visitors to find the button they want, the form they need, or the answer to their question.
- The navigation bar is also simple.Your navbar should be simple and not too cluttered. The main navigation should contain no more than seven items. This is a good rule of thumb. The page groups should be related and make sense, such as information about the company or service offerings.
- Think strategically about internal linking.Your site visitors can be encouraged to read more and take the first step towards converting by providing links to your Contact Us page or product pages. These hooks can quickly take someone from “just browsing” into consideration.
- Do your research on the industry.Look at your competition to see what industry standards are for organizing and presenting your content.
Phillips stated, “Our site was built from scratch. We are now ranking in the top 10 rankings for many competitive keywords that we thought would take at least a year to rank for.” It was well worth the research and time spent on the IA.
Please start your content strategy with your IA
A strong marketing strategy is essential to make your business visible online and connect with customers more effectively. You can make a difference by providing real value to your industry and can catch new customers if you carefully plan your content strategy.