Both context and content are essential components of your web marketing strategy.
Get one or the other wrong or leave it out and the conversion rate on your website will never reach the required level and that means less leads or, even worse, lower quality leads.
So what is context and content?
What Is Context & How Does It Relate to Your Web Marketing?
Has anyone ever said to you that you had taken what they have said out of context? What does that actually mean? It means they have said something that they intended to mean something and you have interpreted what they have said and determined that it means something else entirely.
When the wife says I can have a drink at one of her friend’s dinner parties and I proceed to down 10 of them then that is liable to lead to a whole lot of trouble (for me at least). I took her comment out of the context in which it was communicated.
So what has that got to do with web marketing? Well, for instance if I place a Google Adwords advertisement that promotes “web development” and, upon clicking that add, the site visitor gets taken to our homepage which heavily promotes “data driven web marketing” then the likelihood is that the site visitor will be disappointed and I will have lost my $20 for the click.
Sure, if that customer looks hard, they will find web development mentioned on the page, however, they have every right to expect that clicking on an add for “web development” will lead them to a page that focuses overwhelmingly on web development.
There has been a disconnect between the context they were expecting based upon my advertisement and the context of what I delivered and the result is very bad for me (once again). Far better to have created a page that specifically promoted our web development skills and sending the site visitor to that page.
The bottom line. Getting the context wrong costs money. Getting it right will consistently earn you more money.
What Is Content & How Does It Affect Your Web Marketing?
Content is a bit easier to explain. Many of you know what a content strategy is and how it delivers value over a period of time.
Consistently publishing relevant articles in your niche that inform, educate and even entertain and then promoting those articles is a great long-term strategy to drive traffic and leads to your business and to promote your site’s authority with the search engines.
The quality and depth of your content also, in many cases, improves the level of trust your site visitors have in your knowledge of your industry, your products and, most importantly, how to solve their problems.
The bottom line. Getting the content wrong costs money. Getting it right will consistently earn you more money.
How Do Content & Context Relate To Each Other?
Context and content obviously go hand in hand (not like my wife and I after I have downed the 10 glasses of wine at her friend’s dinner party unfortunately). If you are producing content (and all of us are) then that content should be in context to what your site visitor is looking for.
Just producing content for content’s sake is not going to help your site visitor and neither will it endear your site to Google.
How Do I Know What My Site Visitor Is Looking For?
There are a combination of factors that help you understand what your site visitor is looking for;-
- Your experience in your business and within your market niche
- Feedback from your customers
- Lead conversion or real sales data
- An analysis of the historical data within Google itself
Your Experience Is Vitally Important
Item 1 is down to you and your team. No doubt you have a very good idea based upon years in the business.
Don’t be blasé though.
Your experience may lead you down blind alleys from time to time. You may be influenced by what your industry terms a specific product or service – your site visitors may be searching using a very different term indeed because they do not have the same level of industry knowledge as you do.
How Do You Solicit Feedback From Your Customers?
The simple answer to the above is to ask them.
If you are running an ecommerce site perhaps place a very small survey on your thank you page. You can even do the same on a lead generation site. After they complete the form and are taken to the thank you page add a small survey that asks them whether your site has met their needs.
Even if only a few respond at least you will have some accurate feedback. If they have purchased your product or service you may want to follow up to make sure they are satisfied and then ask them at that point in time. You can also contract third parties to evaluate your site and the usability of the site as compared to what you believe it represents.
Using Lead Conversions & Real Sales Data To Measure Accuracy of Context / Content
You should be measuring your conversion metrics from your site in fine detail. Which pages are converting and at what rate? That data will provide you with invaluable feedback as to the content and context that is resonating with your site visitors and, more importantly, turning them into customers.
Understanding that data will then allow you to fine tune the content and context on a page by page basis to improve your conversion rates across your entire site. Small changes can make a big difference to your bottom line.
Analysis of the Historical Data Within Google
As we often say here at Oracle Digital – “that is a great opinion – you should test that”.
A great way to test an opinion is to do an in depth data analysis of historical search data. This provides you with real information on what people have been searching for in your market niche.
At Oracle Digital we do this all day and every day for our clients. We never cease to be amazed at the insights that the data provides into customer behaviour.
PPC & Landing Pages – Context & Content On Steroids
If you do pay per click e.g. Google Adwords then you will be sending your paid traffic to specific landing pages on your website. The context and the content of those landing pages is extremely important for your ROI.
This is an area where research, analysis and ongoing testing has the biggest potential to positively effect your bottom-line. Having a clear correlation between context and content on your PPC advertisements and the context and content on your landing page can make a huge positive difference.
And the best news is that reaching this objective is not about smoke and mirrors or complex technical processes and jargon. It is all achieved through common sense research and analysis and ongoing testing and measurement.
