High-Value Website Content not Attracting an Audience? Repurpose It!
Do you have a long piece of high-value content on your website that visitors are ignoring? Is it something you spent hours (or days) creating to make your furnishing client’s and design prospect’s lives easier? Why the heck won't they read or view it?
Well, the first thing to know is that everyone’s attention span seems to be shrinking. For example, in 2015 the average time spent on a website page was about 58 seconds. Today, that metric has shrunk to a scary 36 seconds or so.
While these time-on-site numbers look ridiculously brief, take a moment to reflect on your own online behavior. What happens when you search for “interior design trends 2021”? For us, Bing returned some 4.5 BILLION results! Then we had to choose between sites offering “38 trends”, “10 hot trends”, “the 25 hot looks for 2021”, “videos of trends”, a “what the experts think” piece, and, and, and… ad infinitum.
Clicking on a couple of them, the first thing we noticed was that we had no idea who was telling us what the hot trends were. In fact, some of the articles didn’t even identify the author! There went 36 seconds of our lives wasted.
Next, we struggled to uncover where these trends were so trendy. This is disconcerting because – as we’ve said so many times – interior design is local and things that are super trendy in one area of the country may be behind the curve or thought of as just plain yucky where you come from.
Needless to say, we didn’t spend much time on any of them. Instead, we rely on our own experiences and guidance from our suppliers and clients. Why? Because they know what’s going on in their markets better than some anonymous blogger ever will!
Repurpose Content for Short Attention Spans
With all of this in mind, the question remains, how do you keep visitors on-site when they have the attention span of a four-year-old?
Well, here’s the thing. That wonderful piece of content we mentioned in the opening of this post may simply be too long for your audience to read. After all, no one can absorb a 5000-word article in one to half a minute. Heck, most of your visitors will see how long it is and run for the hills (virtually speaking).
The solution? Cut, cut, cut it down and turn it into a series of posts. Then, as you reconstruct your genius-level content, use eye-catching headings for sections, and add bullet points, bold text, and underlining. These techniques are used by professional copywriters to stop the reader from scanning content, and actually take it in.
You see, the idea is to sort of “play to your audience” and give them what they need in smaller doses using tricks that slow them down so they take the time to absorb your content.
· Or watch all of a video.
· Or listen to a podcast.
· You get the drift.
· (See what we did there? And here?)
Again, the goal here is to refine your delivery in ways that your audience is comfortable absorbing. You can't take it personally that they don’t appreciate the effort you’ve already put into creating something that should be valuable to them. Instead, it’s your job to find a format for presenting content that makes it easier to digest and which will ensure they recognize the value.
Getting Your Content Right Isn’t Always Easy
Creating valuable website content that draws traffic, encourages engagement, and produces leads may be the most challenging aspect of online marketing. We work hard on it every week and, while we hope our audience – you – finds the information we share valuable, we also know we can't please all of the people all of the time.
That’s why we bounce back and forth between subjects. We jump from business building tips to design trends or from new products or new lines we carry to news about production and shipping delays. Our thinking in doing this is that different people look for different things from us and if we stay on a single subject week after week, we may lose you. (Or, at a minimum, bore you.)
We recommend you do the same on your business website. Share your thoughts and experiences in ways that will appeal to your audience, not in ways that appeal to you. Keep focused on their needs rather than your own and do everything you can to make sure the content you offer addresses a need or solution your audience is looking for.
Well, that’s about it. We’ve passed the 750-word threshold and we know from experience that’s about the limit for our audience. So, if you have questions or comments about creating or repurposing your best website content, let us know. All you have to do is… Get in touch with TD Fall today.