Above: Executive Development Group places its blog posts on the home page in a slider, displaying current topics that resonate with training and development prospects.

Up-to-date, effective writing that resonnates with your clients is one of the most important factors in attracting website traffic.

One of our clients is getting a third of its website traffic from blog posts, because publish multiple articles each month, with an eye for common sense search phrases and helpful stories that answer likely searches.

We’re building almost all sites now in WordPress and for most clients, the blog function (used as a traditional blog or for other site content) is a powerful tool in three important ways:

1) Keeping the site fresh in a way that defines the brand,

2) Providing an archive of marketing documents for easy access by the client and

3) Attracting more traffic with good search engine optimization  and links shared via social media as with this example by Dr. Lily Kelly-Radord:

LEAP Leadership’s webiste uses the WordPress blog function to currate an experience that’s like a trade journal. Then, the company’s principal, Dr. Kelly-Radford, shares the content on social media. With LinkedIn alone she’s getting thousands of views by posting the story and her site’s traffic spikes whenever she does.

What is content forward?

Fresh content–

Twenty years ago, sites were developed to wow visitors with technical prowess and dazzling aesthetics. Today, our sites are still attractive, but the focus has shifted. Our philosophy holds that website is a conduit or vessel for a brand’s messaging. Design’s still important for all kinds of reasons but up-to-date information wins out if you’re trying to be a problem solver for prospective clients.

Handy archive–

Also 20 years ago, businesses burned through cases of expensive brochures and folders and informational sheets. They would dedicate entire rooms to housing all this collateral material. Now it can all be archived in what amounts to a searchable and easily shared electronic file cabinet in the sky that everyone in your organization has access to, anywhere they go. So, if a salesperson needs an example of some project successes to show to a prospect, they can pull it from the blog and send it.

Information destination–

Search engines are getting more intelligent by the day. Thankfully, now the best way to get found is simply with good writing. Google responds well to natural language and helps searchers find honest to goodness sources for highly nuanced search phrases. A simple well written description of something related to what you sell can be found by the people who need it most.

Go live, then cultivate

King’s English is deploying websites faster and more economically than ever, partly with the advancement of web design solutions, but also because of this content forward strategy. Our approach is to go live as quickly as possible to start cultivating content.

When you make your site a dispenser of information that your customers need, simplicity is foremost. With current content that defines your competitive advantages and solves peoples’ problems customers will find you and your own sales team will have all the collateral it needs.