FREE WEBSITE CONTENT TEMPLATE

As you write content for your website pages, keep these tips in mind. Know your goal before you begin. ...

• Begin with the end in mind. Know the purpose and audience before you start writing. Everything in your work should be in service of solving that problem or question for your audience.
• Start with the most important point. Give the reader the most important information right away. This may seem counterintuitive, but burying the lede causes people who can’t get their question answered quickly (or be drawn into an interesting story) to leave your website.
• Benefits over features. If you’re going to highlight anything in your website content, focus more on the transformation that it will provide to the user, client or customer. A big mistake many people make is talking about their product or service from their point of view, instead of that of the customer.
• Consider the transformation. What transformation is the reader expecting from this piece of content? Where are they now and where do they want to be by the end of it?
• Drop the jargon. Understand what level of knowledge the reader is most likely coming into the article already knowing and meet them where they’re at.
• Content IS design. Creatively using content elements (like we are in this article) enhances the reader’s content experience.
• Ignore your 9th grade grammar lessons. You’ll often hear the advice to write how you speak, but this isn’t accurate advice (at best).  We speak in a smattering of broken and fragmented sentences. The best way to write, however, is to write as your audience speaks. Again, understand where they’re at and meet them there. Don’t be afraid to push some grammatical boundaries.

Good website content plans includes seven things:

1. Article direction and perspective
2. Keyword research
3. Searcher intent
4. Level of Awareness
5. Search Results Intent
6. Recommended outline
7. Suggested design assets

Article direction and perspective

In this section we’ll set the direction for the article and what we want it to accomplish. We will also give our unique angle, or “take” on the topic that will set it apart from currently ranking articles.

Additionally, we may provide examples of articles that accomplish our goal.

Keyword research

The goal of this section is to provide complete semantic keyword research. The writer should look at top-ranking posts on the SERP and identify semantically-related words and phrases to include.

We’ll also include the recommended headline, recommended URL and recommended article length based on top shared/ranking results.

Searcher intent

In this section, we’ll analyze two things:

1. Level of Awareness

Level of Awareness

Which level of product / service awareness is the ideal reader at? How familiar are they with what you sell and the solution you provide?

• Problem Aware
• Knows: the problems and pains they have.
• Needs to know: solutions like yours exist.
• To call them to action: show them you “get” their pain.

• Solution Aware
• Knows: solutions like yours exist.
• Needs to know: how your solution solves their pain.
• To call them to action: show them how your solution works.

• Product Aware
• Knows: how your solution solves their pain.
• Needs to know: if your solution is best for them.
• To call them to action: prove you’re their best option.

• Most Aware
• Knows: your solution is best for them.
• Needs to know: the deal.
• To call them to action: show them the deal.

Search Results Intent

Here, we’ll analyze what kind of content is ranking in search results (listicles, long-form, video, visual, etc.)

Recommended outline

The recommended outline for the article goes here. Typically, reviewing the standard outlines of currently ranking articles is enough to get you started on outlining your own article.

Suggested design assets

If you are working with a designer, or use a design tool such as Canva, utilize this section to outline key ideas from the article that can be turned into images and a featured image. It is key that the featured image be utilized similarly to a YouTube thumbnail: the goal of the featured image is to create an “open loop” and earn the click, not just for decoration.

Now that you understand the why and how behind creating great website content, it’s time to plug it into a proven template.

This is the EXACT same template we use at ActiveCampaign when we create new content.

If you want to get up to speed and implement all of these tips in your next article, check out our free website content template.