Market Research

Once you have written your content you want to double check that it will actually work. This can be the hardest thing to do as you will have your own opinion about it but you want to know what others will think.

The first thing to do is to test it with your friends and family, does it work for them. If the answer is no then you know you need to go back and rewrite what you have. If your friends and family do like it then you need to consider a wider audience in the form of market research and there are various ways to approach this.

The first thing to do is to understand how market research works and the type of things you need to ask your participants. To do this you need to think about what you want to achieve from your content. How do you want people to react to it? Once you know this you should get a series of questions together to ask your participants in your research.

To find people to take part in your market research consider using your social networking sites. Ask the people in your network if they would take part and rate your content. If you have problems with this consider offering people a promotion to take part in it, you might find that is an easier way to get people to take it seriously.

What to Measure?

So know you have people that are prepared to look at the content on your website but what is important to know. Well one of the most important things you should always find out is their reaction in the first few seconds. Why is this important? Well basically we have become very impatient with the invention of the internet. If people have to invest too much effort in your content they will switch off very quickly. For that reason you should aim to engage people in the first couple of lines. If you manage to do this then your chance of getting people to read on and so getting a sale is much greater.

A/B Testing

Another thing you can consider doing is A/B testing to see what works the best. Stumble Upon has a great system that you can use that might really benefit you. This will give you an idea of what version of your site is most successful at converting people into sales.

This can be really important as many people know what they like so you will know if you like your site but do you know if something will work better. Doing this can often result in some surprising answers and really help you to change your content to ensure it is the most effective.

If you are putting your website together you always need to make sure it is design to not only attract the search engines but also to convert as many visitors into sales as possible. Creating newsworthy content can help with both aspects.