An optimized website should be a highly personal interaction with your marketplace. That’s how you engage your visitors. So, how do we get the info we need to make it “personal”? How do we get the right content to create a relationship with your marketplace?
When you hire me to optimize your site using my 6-Step Website Content Optimization Method, our first task is to complete a Website Creative Brief. It is how we identify the key messages that will best create a profitable relationship with your target audience.
I use the Creative Brief to gather as much information as I can about your customers and how your products and services help them. The ways your business makes people’s lives better. It doesn't matter whether you’re selling to sophisticated technical buyers or the general public.
The website creative brief is the foundation for getting the right words into the content so you get found in the search engines. And it sets the direction for the kind of messages that engage your best customers and prospects and leads them to action.
Here’s an overview of what you can expect from my Website Creative Brief.
Describe Your Ideal Target Customer or Client
After a brief look at your business, years in business, number of employees etc, we’ll start right in getting info on your ideal target customer or client. Gender, age, and cultural considerations are all part of this customer profile. Plus the geographic location of your customer base. If it’s regional, that means we’ll need to concentrate on Local SEO.
List Your Main Products or Services and the Solution They Offer Your Customers
This is a great time to start thinking about differentiating your products/services and maybe organizing them into categories. List what you offer and, more importantly, what each product or service does to solve your customers' problems.
The Purpose of Your Website
This is especially important when considering the structure of your website and its navigation. Point here is, what do you want your website to do for your visitors? And what do you want your visitors to do after they arrive?
Is your site’s purpose to sell products? Do you want visitors to buy directly from the site, complete an email form for a sales rep to get in touch, or maybe make a donation to your not-for-profit.
Or you may want your site is to provide an electronic portfolio of your products/services, promote membership, or educate customers and offer a library of information.
Getting the messaging right hinges on knowing what we want your website to do.
Content Optimization Considerations
Here is the fun part. This is where we list the key features of your products/services. Then list the benefit each of those features delivers to your customers/clients.
And here is where we do our best to determine the main UNIQUE benefit or solution only your product or service can offer. This is the USP, or Unique Selling Proposition (also called Unique Solution Proposition).
We talk about what keeps your prospects up at night. What’s the #1 pain they’re experiencing that your product/service can solve.
What is your Big Promise? What, exactly, are you promising that your product/service will do. What’s the single most important benefit message or offer for the target audience in one sentence?
How does your big promise solve the prospect’s #1 pain? What are you really selling? For example, you’re not selling grass seed or even a greener lawn, you’re selling homeowner’s pride with very little work or expense.
Finally, what are the keywords your prospects would use to search for your products/services. These are the words I work into the content in just the right places to get you ranked on page one of Google.
There’s more to talk about, such as testimonials, your competitors, the tone or “voice” to be conveyed in your messages (serious, lighthearted, fun, practical). The more info I have the better the content you get for your website.
I said above that the Content Optimization Considerations are the “fun” part. That isn’t to say that all of this info is easy to come up with. It takes an effort and maybe some quiet time on your part. You have to really think through the benefits your customers get buying your products. And why are they better off buying from you instead of your competition.
The fun comes in better understanding what you really do and how you make people’s lives better. That’s why they’ve been buying from you in the past. The Web just expands your marketplace. To reach this larger audience takes the right messaging. That’s why the website creative brief for content is so important.
Until next time,
Nick
Nick Burns is an SEO web writer specializing in persuasive copywriting and content marketing. He provides clients a winning content strategy plus the special web writing to make it work. You can contact Nick here.
