Do you have a content plan for your site ? or are you just serving up the same old stuff you've been serving for years with the possible addition of a few news releases? And if you're about to launch your first site, have you really considered ? really considered - what's going to fill the white space?



What is website content?

First let's look at a definition. Your website content is more than just text ? although text may be the single most important element on your site. You can log on www.web-audios-plus.com "Website content" also refers to illustrations, demos, images (if they pertain to your product or service), videos, podcasts, downloadable PDFs, and anything else your visitors might look for on your site.

All too often, B2B marketers agonize over what a website looks like without giving much thought to what is being communicated. With this article, I hope to save you from making this same mistake.

Planning for the right website content.

The starting point for planning and developing your website content is ? you guessed it ? your visitors. Ask yourself these questions:

* Who are the people who are or will be coming to our site?

* Why are they there?

* What are they looking for?

* What questions do they have?

* In what format will they prefer to access the info?

* How can we best answer their questions and address their info needs?

Keep in mind that you're almost sure to have different types of visitors with different questions and preferred answers. You could have prospects, existing customers, bloggers and journalists, industry analysts, investors, prospective employees and others that don't come to mind off the top of my head. And in a complex business technology selling situation you'll likely have a number of different types of prospects ? executives, economic buyers, IT professionals, and users. Ask and answer these questions for each group.

Audit your current content.

Next, take a look at the content you already have. This includes any existing website context as well as collateral, presentations, demos, newsletters, articles, speeches, past webinars, training materials, testimonials, forums, whatever. Review each to determine what can be used as is, what needs to be modified and what needs to be created.

If you're replacing or updating an existing site, resist the temptation to just roll over the existing content with the promise that "we'll update it later". For more details visit www.html-lockdown.com The truth is that this almost never happens.

Many new clients come to us unhappy with their website performance, and they want a make-over. While there are very few of these sites that couldn't use some improvement in the visual design area, it is not uncommon to find that greater performance improvements can be achieved through content changes. So, don't skip this step.

Susan Pascal Tatum, co-founder and president of Tatum Marketing is a recognized expert in business-to-business internet marketing. She helps software, information technology and BtoB firms achieve greater online marketing results. She is a popular author and speaker, regularly publishes internet marketing strategies and actionable tips on the site's blog. Visit www.tatummarketing.com for a copy Technology Marketing 2008.