How to improve website content: 9 web content tips.

Clients come to us looking for websites that reflect their brand, perform well in terms of SEO and win new customers for their business. Web design and development create the foundation they need. But sometimes clients underestimate the importance of good website content.

The stuff you put on your website — the words, images and videos — are just as important as the functionality and appearance of your site. That’s because these are the things that tell web users — and search engines — what your site is all about.

High-quality website content supports your branding and SEO efforts. It improves website engagement and conversion rates. So as well as creating new content and using it to boost your online presence, you should make sure that your existing content is following best practices.

Here, we provide some tips on how to improve website content to get it working as hard as possible for your website and your business.

How to improve your website content

To improve content on your site, follow these website content tips:

1. Do a content audit
2. Think about your audience
3. Improve readability and structure
4. Add multimedia content
5. Optimise your content for SEO
6. Create pillar posts
7. Update old content
8. Add a clear CTA
9. Include your own unique insights

Now, let’s take a closer look at these website content best practices.

1. Do a content audit

The first thing to do to improve website content is a website audit. This is where you look at all the pages on your website and assess the content you have on them.

You need to look at things like accuracy, relevance, user engagement, organic traffic and readability. Some of this data is qualitative, based on your subjective evaluation of the content on your site. Some of it is quantitative, based on website analytics.

It can help to put all this content data into a spreadsheet. You can then reference this spreadsheet as you make content decisions. You can use it to identify:

• top-performing content, which you may like to replicate
• under-performing content, which you can refresh, repurpose or delete (with caution!)
• your content priorities — the pages that get the most views and engagement but don’t have high-quality content

2. Think about your audience

Great content meets the needs and expectations of its audience. So when trying to improve website content, keep your ideal customers in mind.

It can be helpful to create customer personas. This gives you a clear idea of who you’re talking to. You understand their priorities, primary problems and state of mind.

Then, look at your existing content, thinking about the journey website users took to arrive on each page. Consider their user intent. That means asking:

• What was their main goal when they typed that search query into a search engine and landed on your page?
• Does your content provide the information they need, in the right amount of depth and in a format that’s easy to consume?

If any of your web content fails to meet user needs and expectations, it’s time to update and refresh it.

3. Improve readability and structure

To improve written web content — like blog posts, your home page or case studies — assess its readability and structure. The aim is to make your content easy for web users to skim, scan and digest.

So, check your content follows these best practices:

• Put the most important information at the top of your web page. This makes it much more likely that website visitors will see and read it.
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Long blocks of text can be overwhelming for users, particularly if they’re reading your content on a small smartphone screen.
• Break your content up with descriptive subheadings and bullet point lists. This helps users to scan your content to find the information they need quickly and easily.
• Stick to simple language. Limit your use of industry jargon. Don’t use a long word where a short one will do. Even the most educated audience wants online content that is quick and easy to access.

When your web content is well-structured and easy to read, web visitors are more likely to read what you’ve written. And they’re less likely to bounce away from your web page quickly.

4. Add multimedia content

According to Semrush, video was the most effective content format in 2023. This is followed by short-form articles, success stories, long-form blog posts and case studies.

So to engage web users and keep them on your site, aiming for a mix of written and multimedia content is a good approach. You can add images, illustrations, infographics, animation and video to your website.

Also, bear in mind that written content with good images gets 94% more views than content without. So break up your written content with multimedia content. It’ll make your website more interesting for users — and it’ll help you better illustrate the points you want to make.

5. Optimise your content for SEO

When improving web content — or creating new content — your number one focus should always be your website users. Providing the best possible user experience (UX) is your top priority.

However, if you can weave some keywords into your content, without harming UX, you may find that your content performs better in search engine result pages (SERPs).

To reach your audience through search engines, identify the keywords you’re using across your website content, ensuring that no two pages target the same primary keywords.

Then, check that your primary keywords feature in:

• the title of your content
• a subheading or two
• the body text
• image alt tags
• image titles
• video transcripts
• the meta description

Also, add internal links to other relevant content. Optimising your content for SEO increases the reach of that content and can improve organic traffic.

6. Create pillar posts

A pillar post is a comprehensive, in-depth piece of content. It serves as a hub for a particular topic covered by your website.

For example, imagine you have a group of blog posts about digital marketing:

• SEO strategies for beginners
• Social media marketing tips
• Email marketing best practices
• Best digital marketing tools for 2024

These posts form your digital marketing topic cluster.

You can then create a pillar post and give it a title like: The only guide to digital marketing you’ll ever need. This pillar post is a long-form blog post that summarises all blogs included in the digital marketing topic cluster.

In this pillar post, you create links to all cluster posts. You also revisit all cluster posts, adding links to your pillar post.

This creates a logical site structure that makes it easier for search engines to understand the key topics your website covers. And it makes it more likely that your pages will feature on the first page of SERPs.

So when looking through your website content, keep an eye out for pillar post opportunities. It could be that one new post, tying your topic together, gives older web pages an SEO boost.

7. Update old content

Website content goes out of date quickly. So it’s worth reviewing and updating any content that is over a year old.

When updating copy:

• Fact-check and update the copy to reflect the latest statistics, research and trends
• Check and replace any broken internal links
• Make sure the content fits with your current website branding, including your tone of voice and messaging
• Analyse high-performing competitor content and find ways to make your content better than theirs

If a piece of content has been driving traffic to your website, stick with the same keywords and URL. But look to see whether there are any keyword variations you could add to the original copy.

8. Add a clear CTA

70% of small business websites don’t have any calls to action on their homepage. So it follows that they’re probably missing some call to action opportunities throughout the rest of their website, too.

Some website content is designed to get an instant conversion. Other content is about nurturing relationships with potential customers. Either way, you should always be looking to move that relationship forward by nudging users to the next stage of your conversion funnel.

If they’re reading a blog post, you might encourage them to download a useful resource in exchange for their email address. If they’re reading a downloaded ebook, you could guide them to view your services. If they’re looking at a service page, you might encourage them to fill in a contact form.

Think about where your users are in their journey as they consume a particular piece of content. Then, include a good call to action that encourages them to take the next step.

9. Include your own unique insights

Google prioritises website content that meets its E-E-A-T criteria. Here’s what that acronym stands for:

• Expertise — covering a topic accurately and in-depth
• Experience — demonstrating human, real-life experience of a topic/li>
• Authoritativeness — getting backlinks and consistently publishing high-quality content/li>
• Trustworthiness — providing clear contact information and maintaining a positive reputation

The experience part of E-E-A-T is a relatively new addition. To create content that meets this criteria, you need to include your unique, real-world insights. You should also avoid using AI to create or update your website content.

Google — and other search engines — look for content that is original and valuable. So generic, AI-produced content is unlikely to provide the perspective and personality that you and your team bring to the table.

Why improve website content?

So now you know how to improve website content. But — we get it — putting these website content tips into action takes time. So why do it? Why is it important to improve your website content and refresh it regularly?

Well, when you improve your website content you:

• Boost your brand image. Content that contains relevant information, that is easy to read and that incorporates multimedia, shows your brand in the best possible light. You also establish credibility by showing how well you understand your industry.
• Provide information for website visitors. Website visitors use your website to research their problems and potential solutions — and to find out what your brand can offer them. By answering user questions via your content, you build trust and encourage them to buy from you.
• Improve website SEO. High-quality content keeps users on your site for longer. Well-optimised content tells search engines exactly what your web pages are about. Both of these things improve site SEO.
• Improve conversion rates. Clear, accurate information. Content that outshines the competition. Establishing yourself as a trusted voice within your industry. This all stands to improve your website conversion rate.

Too much content? Not enough time? Let the Radical team craft web content that works

Depending on the size of your website, creating new content and updating old content can feel like a full-time job. And as a business owner, you’re probably already pretty strapped for time.

So, if you want help getting your website content up to scratch, take a look at our web maintenance and SEO support service. As part of this service, we can improve existing content and create new content for your site. We can also ensure that your site is working well in terms of off-page and technical SEO.

Sounds good? Then get in touch with the Radical team to chat about your content and SEO needs.