Why Does a Website Cost So Much?

by Mark Bloom | Jun 19, 2018 | Website Content

It’s Just Ones and Zeros, Right? What’s So Hard?

Website cost seems to have skyrocketed recently. You used to be able to pay your nephew or your neighbor’s kid $100 to build and publish a website on the internet that looked decent. What’s so hard about that? There are even simple tools now that provide a template. All you have to do is plop in some royalty-free stock photos, add some words and BAM — you have yourself a website.

One of the reasons your website cost has increased is that your nephew and that neighbor kid are now young adults working for companies that charge thousands of dollars for a website. And they’ve learned a lot in the intervening years. OK, the new sites look a little better today than they used to, but a website is a website, isn’t it?

Not All Websites Are Created Equal

Those slapdash websites of the 1990s wouldn’t cut it in today’s market. They are so slow to load. They look clunky, the images are tiny and what’s with that blinking text?! Those websites even look outdated, if it’s possible for a website to look old-fashioned after just 20 years.

By comparison, today’s websites are fluid. They load quickly and work on all kinds of devices. They take advantage of scrolling, zooming and collapsing menus. Ordering is easy and secure, as long as you confirm that you’re not a robot. What would someone from the 90s think of that?

The Elements of a Modern Website

Another reason for high website cost is the various specialties required to complete a business website project. It’s not one kid in a basement anymore. Website development agencies need:

• Project managers, who act as the liaison between the customer and the website agency. Communication must be timely and fluid, as website projects often require tweaking from phase to phase.
• Website designers, not just to make the website pop, but also to fit the design to the business’s target audience. AARP has a much different design than Red Bull, even though both act as a landing page for stories.
• Website developers, the down-and-dirty code-jockeys of website agencies. They do the actual coding to make the websites work as designed. Even when an agency offers template-driven forms, there is still coding to be done to customize a site for a particular business.
• Content writers to create the new content that populates the pages. Content isn’t the last step or an unnecessary extra. Some development firms start with the content. They know that without effective content, a new website will just sit there and underperform, no matter how well it’s designed and developed. Every piece works together to make a website work.

And that isn’t all — you have graphic artists, SEO experts, photographers, marketing pros, assistants, accountants and the beat goes on… As you can see, that’s a lot of mouths to feed, all of whom drive up the website cost. Most website development projects take a minimum of three months, from initial meeting to launch. That means a lot of people are putting in many hours on your website.

But It’s Totally Worth the Expense

Your business only needs a brand-new website maybe once every five years. Some companies update the look more frequently than that, but a five-year-old website doesn’t necessarily look old or out-of-place. You can always swap photos and insert new pages of content, but a completely new website is an infrequent expense.

Your website cost, ameliorated over its functional life, is fairly inexpensive, especially when compared to other business costs, such as advertising and personnel. And unlike personnel, your website works for you every minute it’s up, without a break. If it’s effective, it may be bringing in leads as fast as your best salespeople. Now you’re not thinking about website cost; you’re considering the website ROI.

Effective Websites Have Effective Content

Ray Access is a business-to-business company. In other words, we don’t sell our writing services to the public, but to other businesses. As a result, we work with smart companies to improve their websites, to make them more effective by attracting attention and encouraging visitors to contact our clients.

In fact, more often than not, we work with the web developers who create the sites because they know the importance of good content that blends in perfectly with the overall design and style. They don’t want their site launch held up while they wait for their business client to deliver or fix content.

Website Cost vs. Return on Investment

If you’re worried about website cost, think of it as an investment in your company’s future. Think of it as a marketing and advertising expense, since it’s your information listing and your outward facing image. In a way, that’s exactly what it is, if it’s done right. And a website that’s not done right isn’t worth the paper it’s not printed on.

So, when you’re considering a new website, make sure you hire someone to develop your content too. Ray Access writers understand what a website has to do. They know how good websites work. And content is always edited, so that it always sounds like it comes from the source: you.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

What’s the Difference Between Good Content and Bad Content?

by Mark Bloom | Mar 19, 2018 | Website Content

What Makes Good Website Content Effective?

Consider: does this question keep you up at night? Do you wonder how your website content measures up? We’ve written about this topic before in What Is Good Content? But that article was more like a hands-on how-to with specific tips and general guidelines.

This article, in contrast, describes the actual attributes of what makes good website content. You need to know the destination before you step onto the path. As George Harrison sang, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” But that’s not how you arrive at good website content.

What Bad Website Content Looks Like

To learn what makes good website content, you first have to learn to recognize bad website content. Then the difference becomes as clear as the finest crystal. Based on the numerous examples that are unfortunately still live on the internet, bad website content:

• Tries to sell visitors products or services before building any trust
• Jabbers on and on about what the business does and how great it is without proof
• Works hard to connect to too many different audiences at the same time
• Uses words like “I,” “we” and “our,” without once saying anything about “you”
• Relies on too little content, just photos or videos, or provides huge blocks of dense text

Competition for eyeballs is fierce. Attention spans are short. If your website doesn’t serve your visitors, your visitors won’t stick around long enough to learn what makes your company great.

What Makes Good Website Content

Effective website content, on the other hand, does certain things very well. Regardless of the website design you use — although a modern design supports the content and tells readers that you keep up to date with IT trends — what makes good website content is that it:

• Identifies its audience right away
• Answers questions that people are asking or searching for
• Builds rapport by providing valuable information for free
• Builds trust by doing what it says it will do — the opposite of “clickbait”
• Solves a problem its visitors have or have had
• Uses engaging language that’s directed outwardly, toward your visitors

You have to put some thought into your website content. It’s not the same as writing a brochure. Your website may be your digital storefront, open 24 hours a day, but if all you’re touting are your sales, you’ll become known for being different because you’re cheap. Is that your competitive advantage? Sure, it works for WalMart, but is that really your business model? Is that model you’re trying to follow?

Your Website Isn’t About Your Company

As counterintuitive as it seems, your website doesn’t serve your company; it has to serve your audience, your visitors. A book without readers ultimately fails. A business without customers must also. Your customers keep you in business, so honor them by gearing your website to their needs, their questions and their priorities.

That, in a nutshell, is the essence of what makes good website content. You can measure website traffic and conversion rates until you’re blue. Instead, examine your website from your visitors’ point of view. And then ask yourself if it satisfies the criteria above for good content.

And when you’re ready to make an adjustment toward a website that not only attracts new visitors, but also converts those visitors into new customers, contact Ray Access. With world renowned quality at affordable prices, Ray Access delivers content that’s not only thoroughly researched and guaranteed original, but is also professionally edited, often multiple times.

The Best Website Content Writing Tip You’ll Ever Read

by Mark Bloom | Jan 22, 2018 | Website Content

Website Pages Have to Connect with Visitors

Everyone in the internet industry has their own opinion about what makes effective content for a website. Some SEO experts have insisted that, to rank high, a web page needs at least 1,000 targeted, carefully crafted words on a particular subject. Others have put the number at 800. Still others claim that length doesn’t matter at all.

Of course, the use of keywords still counts in website content writing — at least until artificial intelligence makes them obsolete, a day that is getting all too close. But there’s more to writing engaging website content than relying on multiple keywords. And keyword stuffing is a bad practice anyway. (So use keywords, but don’t overuse them.)

But that’s still not the answer, since keywords are designed only to attract people to your website. Once they’ve arrived, keywords are unnecessary and superfluous. Something more is required if you want an effective website.

What Website Content Writing Is Supposed to Do

The Holy Grail of websites is persuading visitors to take action. That’s it, really. The conversion of a website visitor into a customer begins with a single mouse click. When people find their way to your website, which is in itself a remarkable feat, the website’s goal is getting them to:

• Want to learn more, which means visiting other pages on your website
• Contact your company through a contact form, a phone call or an email
• Sign up for your newsletter to stay in touch and maybe get special deals
• Order your product or service, ideally, but that rarely happens on the first visit

If your website content connects with visitors, it’s done its job. It’s generated a sales lead. The rest is up to you and your team.

But What’s the Best Way to Engage Visitors?

Now it gets down to the nitty gritty of websites. What separates the websites of successful companies from those of less successful companies? It’s all about engagement, getting visitors to stay on your website longer because they want to, because you’re giving them what they’ve been searching the internet for. And this is the crux of the best website content writing tip you’ll ever read.

This tip involves three parts:

1. Know your audience. You have to know who you’re trying to attract with your website. You’re in business to serve your customers. You have to know who they are. Define your demographic and develop some personas.
    
2. Understand what they want. When this target group of people come to your website, what is it they’re looking for? Information? Your phone number? Tips about your industry, products or services? You have to know what they want and make it all easy to find. That’s part website design, but it also involves good website content writing.
    
3. Deliver it all in a responsive way. Even if you satisfy the first two requirements, if you don’t nail this one, your visitors click away to find your competitors who are doing all three. This is where presentation matters. This is where language matters. This is what so many businesses get wrong.

The Ray Access Vision for Website Content Writing

One of the factors that sets Ray Access projects apart from the rest of the internet — in addition to the careful editing process we employ — is the language and tone of the websites we write. It’s not enough to present clear, concise, easy-to-find information on your website, although that certainly helps make a website inviting.

To bring it home, you have to present your information in a way that speaks to your visitors. It’s an important distinction that demands a careful choice of words. Don’t use stilted language and passive voice. Write your website like you’re talking to a friend — because that’s what you want your website visitors to become.

Detailed Advice

Explain unusual or industry terms that come up because you know people will ask. Write in simple sentence structures and short paragraphs. Break up your page with easy-to-scan headings and relevant images. These things help people read and find what they’re looking for.

Short sentences and short paragraphs make a page more readable, more person-friendly. Concise words and phrases engage readers who are interested in the subject as well as readers who are new to your site. Simple website content writing — which is often the most difficult way to write — is the most engaging. Content that connects with your visitors gets readers to make that one click that matters most: on the Buy Now button.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

Why Content Is King

by Mark Bloom | Jan 31, 2017 | Website Content

Reasons Content Marketing Outperforms SEO

Your website content has to deliver your promise and communicate your value. As more and more people get online to find answers and do their shopping, it’s become increasingly vital that your business be visible, front and center. That’s the business of search engine optimization or SEO. But it’s also why your content is king.

We’ve written about this idea before:

• Content Is King
• Is Content Still King?
• Content in Context

SEO for the Rest of Us

But there’s still more to say. For many business owners, SEO is a “black box” that seems like a marketing necessity, but no one quite knows how it’s supposed to work. Ask five different SEO experts, and you’ll likely get five different versions of the best way to approach SEO for business websites.

Some say backlinks drive ranking. Others say you need long-form content on every web page. Still others swear by keyword research and Google Adwords campaigns. Then there’s the growing reliance on landing pages. While all these strategies play a role in improving your website rank toward that coveted Number One on the First Page listing, they may all fail without website content that converts.

Content Is King Because…

SEO delivers eyeballs to your website. It maximizes your website to attract the people most likely to buy your service or product. It positions your website listing so that more people see it. But it’s your website’s job to convert those visitors into lasting customers. Without useful and persuasive content, your website wastes all the chances that SEO delivers.

Content is king because it prepares your website for all the traffic it sees. When it’s done properly, your website content:

• Communicates your competitive advantage
• Connects with your target audience
• Delivers useful information and answers questions
• Makes your site the “go-to” destination for your industry and location
• Persuades visitors to contact you

Keywords and Content

Keywords do actually work to help people find your website. But once they’re there, reading your content and perusing your pages, the keywords should be virtually invisible. This doesn’t mean hiding your keywords in invisible ink at the bottom of each page — that kind of behavior now gets you punished by search engines, and rightly so.

Keywords need to appear within the content, as part of the content. But if content is king, your keywords are the pawns that shouldn’t knock your readers senseless. In other words, if a visitor to your website notices obvious keywords, you’re overusing them. Subtlety is the champion of effective website content. Ray Access writers shoot for a one percent keyword density and sometimes purposefully under-deliver. A higher density smacks of an advertisement.

Attract, Don’t Repel

For your content to achieve all of the goals listed above, it must speak to your audience and it must deliver value. It can’t do that if it screams out its keywords every chance it gets. Above all, make friends with your audience. Offer your virtual hand and provide something that’s worth the trust you’re asking for.

In other words, provide value to your website visitors. If you can do that, they’ll remember you; they’ll think of you first when they’re ready to buy — or recommend — what you offer. As one content marketing firm once wrote: “To be good at SEO, you need to stop thinking about SEO.” Because content is king, it remains at the top of all online marketing efforts.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

Does Your Website Trick or Treat?

by Mark Bloom | Oct 31, 2016 | Website Content

Build Trust with Your Website Content Honestly

This Halloween, more children are going to be treated than tricked. Those costumed kids may shout, “Trick or treat!” from your front stoop, but you know there’s no trick, just plenty of treats. Candy. That’s what the holiday is all about.

In the virtual world of the Internet, people still want that kind of innocent simplicity. They expect it, just like the kids on your stoop expect candy. If you’re looking for information on how to make your own chocolate, for example, you don’t have the time or patience to sit through a commercial, you want the darn recipe. And yet many businesses still deliver ads instead of information. That’s a trick.

Treat, Don’t Trick

When your business builds trust through its website by delivering on a promise, visitors appreciate and remember that. It’s a simple thing to be honest with your online content, and it’s something Ray Access prides itself on. If your website has a page explaining how to make chocolate, visitors expect to see a simple recipe or even better, a video. If you can manage to present the information clearly, in a way that’s easily scannable, you’ve won some converts.

If, however, your website lapses into hyperbole or outright lying just to draw a crowd, it may enjoy an early surge of popularity, but eventually it has to fail. Don’t trick your visitors. While you may attract a small stream of new visitors, no one will ever return — kind of like the creepy house that gives out that hard candy from the 1940s. No one ever goes back for seconds.

Build Trust with Your Website

Your website is more than your online storefront; it’s the face of your company. You can use it to build a community loyal to you, or you can fill your pages with ads. Consider which site brings visitors back. When you build trust with your website, you connect with your visitors in an emotional way. A positive way. When you use your website to sell everything you can, you also spark an emotional reaction. A negative one.

Build trust with your website content, and you’ll get to sell your products or services because people do business with people and companies they genuinely like. And you get people to like you by being honest with them. Treat your website visitors; don’t trick them.

Click-Bait

“Click-bait” has become the new irresistible Internet advertising scheme. And it seems to be everywhere. Click-bait is the headline that piques your interest enough to click on it. When you land on a click-bait page, however, you’re treated to a multi-page advertising engine that provides just enough enticing content — on average about 10 percent of the total page — to keep you clicking.

In other words, click-bait is a vehicle for ensnaring people browsing the Internet. But click-bait articles rarely deliver on the promises of their original headlines. Instead, it’s just a way to show you more ads.

Be a Halloween Favorite

If you don’t build trust with your website, you may be succumbing to click-bait mentality. Don’t be that guy, that girl or that company that gives out crappy candy on Halloween. Invest in candy people actually want, and they’ll come back.

It’s the exact same philosophy with your website. Don’t use click-bait headlines to draw in visitors. Deliver clear, consistent, honest information on your website. Visitors appreciate it; they’ll remember you because of it. When they need your product or service, they’ll return. And then, instead of asking for candy, they’ll be asking for your business.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.