If you want to market your website with the right content, you still need to know why your website exists in the first place.

What are you trying to accomplish?

• Reinforce your brand?
• Sell products online?
• Generate leads?
• Create awareness about your business?
• Provide more information for the prospects you meet?

Like most content marketing types, your website should focus on being interesting or entertaining while educating prospects about what you can do for them and how they can benefit.

So can your website succeed with just some text about each product or service? Everything can work to a degree. You’re better off providing more information on the website or tease downloads and demos potential customers can request.

I often hear that web developers and small business owners want to provide limited content so visitors will be motivated to fill out a form or call for more information. They worry that if they answer all of their questions on the website, they will miss out on a huge opportunity to connect with them.

Their perspective actually has some foundational merit, but it is largely flawed. Yes, a website that goes overboard with information can mean that you won’t hear from the prospect anytime soon. Or, the information architecture could be so disorganized that the user gets lost and loses interest. And the more you share, the more a visitor can decide your business isn’t a good fit.

The key is to provide the information they need. Some can be offered through additional navigation on a page (if they choose to go that route). Or, you can have special offers (i.e. how-to guides that fit the content someone is reading on a page). In other words, make it available with SEO as a goal without disturbing the user experience.

Always tell stories – whether you can reveal the names of the companies or not. You can have case studies without exposing your clients to competitors. You can share details without really identifying your clients. Don’t just boast about how great you are; demonstrate it.

Here are a wide range of content marketing ideas for your SEO plans. Some will resonate with you. Others you’ll dismiss as being too lightweight or not engaging people in your sales process. But each could convey a little bit about your business and keep the content interesting.

1. Interview other experts in your industry. They don’t need to be direct competitors. Get some of their wisdom.
2. Post pictures from local and national events you attend.
3. Talk to employees at your company. Learn how they’re interacting with customers. What have they learned about your customers’ needs? What problem did they solve? Give life to your stale FAQs.
4. Monitor the news. Keep up with industry trends, social media posts. What are people saying? Could you offer your views on something that’s topical?
5. Reach out to others. Invite people to write posts on your blog.
6. Promote an educational guide or white paper.
7. Feature excerpts from your resources.
8. Conduct a study and share the results (or tease people with results and get them to download the full study).

What kinds of website content have you created (or can create) to support your online marketing and SEO efforts?