Writing Online Content

| Web design

Writing online content? - You may have forgotten these simple techniques

At the present climate, we are all stretched for time and resources. Estate agents are no exception, but not regularly updating your online content will harm your online presence and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which in turn, will harm your business. A quick self-check will save you the expense of hiring someone and the techniques will vastly improve your online content!

1. Write it, and then leave it!

This is a trick that many forget. Give your mind time to reset itself. This will enable you to take a step back and consider any mistakes in spelling, grammar or content. By planning the content you write in advance, the quality of content will be vastly improved.

2. Ask a friend

You can check, recheck and check again but sometimes you will miss the mistakes that are right under your nose. The best way to finally filter out any final mistakes is to use a colleague. They will be able to view your content completely afresh and will notice mistakes that you have missed out. This can be perfect for proof reading property listings!

3. Consider your keywords

This is the best time to check that you have used the right amount of keywords in your content. Using too many will flag your content as 'spam', too little keywords and your content won't be picked up. Keyword density is an effective way to see that you haven't repeated too many words. Count the how many times the word appears in the content and divide by the number of words, times this number by 100 and you'll get a percentage. The debate on keyword density ranges from 1% to 8%. We suggest your repeated keywords are between 2-3%.

4. Are you selling the benefits?

Sales 101: Write about the benefits of the product or service and not the feature. People are interested in how a particular product/service will benefit them and not the features of it.

5. Stuck for ideas?

Look at other estate agents and their online content. Do not plagiarise but use the topics that they are talking about and write them in your own words.

6. A picture paints a thousand words

A picture can capture the eye and give a lot of information on what the article has in store. Make sure that the picture in with the theme of the content. Putting a picture of an animal when the content talking about the latest problems affecting estate agents in the UK, will not only confuse readers and lower the professionalism of your website.