For all of the effort that gets put into search engine optimization and creating flashy websites I am always surprised by how little effort tends to get put into actual content. If you were putting an ad out in the newspaper or on the radio for your company, what would you tell your customers? Would you use a bunch of flashy graphics or use the first couple of sentences you can think of? I hope not. You probably would spend a lot of time thinking about just the right words to use and message to convey because this ad is going to be expensive and you can only fit a small number of words.

So why don't people think about their websites the same way? You invest a lot of money into designing a flashy website and advertising to get traffic, but you only through up some text and marketing materials quickly. In my opinion graphics and ad campaigns for your website are just part of the equation. What really matters is the actual content and what website users can do and learn on your site.

Most of the websites I work on are for customers that are trying to promote their company's products or services but they do not directly sell through their website. Their website is meant to be an informational tool about the company to get potential customers to contact the company directly either be email, phone, or in person. This is exactly what radio, TV, and newspaper ads are meant to do. The great thing about websites are that you have free reign over what it looks like and you can provide a lot more information to the customer. The downside is that users do not come to your website and spend hours looking through your content, they spend a few minutes.

So what can you do? Put time and effort into writing the content that gets put onto your website. Make sure that the images that you use are related to the message you are trying to convey, use your entire website as a canvas to convey your targeted message to the user. Of course you should also make sure that your website is well organized so that users can quickly find exactly what they came there for. Some users need to find a location, search for something in your inventory, find a phone number or an email address. Ensure that you have all of the information and content that users expect to find on your website and that they can find it in one or two clicks.