Answer
Content is one of the most misunderstood areas when people first contemplate a website
for their business. In the high-
There is a common misconception that by simply having a web presence, people are
automatically going to find your site. Well, this may be true if someone knows your
business, knows you have a website, knows its domain name, and has a good reason
to visit your site. But without those four elements, no-
This concept is not particularly difficult to grasp (as we illustrated in our domain name FAQ). The best way of illustrating how a commercial website can use information to attract visitors is by way of an example.
Let’s assume we have a Hotel that wishes to have a web presence. Obviously, the purpose
of the website is to attract guests who will ultimately make a reservation. However,
if no-
Clearly, one of the choices will be to link the website to one of the many hotel portals on the Internet This way, if surfers visit such a portal to find hotels in specific locations, the chances are very good that the hotel site will be seen by all surfers who choose to look for accommodation in the location where the hotel is situated. This does, however, create a competition issue as visitors to portals can normally make comparisons between a number of different hotels. But, what about all those other surfers that aren’t yet ready to look for accommodation? They may be looking to find a resort or city for their next vacation. Or maybe a businessman will be surfing the net to research information about geographic areas of the world suitable for expansion. These are the people who can be attracted to a hotel site simply because it may contain the information they are looking for.
A hotel could, for example, provide extensive information about the resort area or city where it is located. It could provide historic information, street maps, places of interest – even information about the local economy. Such a site could contain extensive photography to show site visitors the beauty or variety of the local environment. These are all factors that can encourage people to book vacations and business trips. Now, if all that useful information is found on a website owned and operated by a hotel, then the chances are very good that the hotel will get the enquiry for accommodation without having to compete with other hotels on a portal site.
This type of content structure can be used by most businesses. Garden centres can
offer seasonal advice and planting recommendations to gardeners, A food retailer
or producer can offer recipes and nutritional information. Law firms can offer practical
advice in their areas of expertise. A furnishing company can offer interior design
hints and tips, or “how-
Of course, information pages must be correctly indexed and optimized for the search
engines to find those all-