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5 Types of Content Your Business Website Needs

December 23, 2022

Do you want to maximize your business success potential? In that case, the key to reaching your goals might be to develop and enact a well-planned content strategy.

Content creation is an excellent way for any small business to:

  • Boost web traffic
  • Establish brand authority
  • Engage potential customers
  • Create a recognizable brand personality
  • Solve customer pain points
  • Improve conversion rates.

Content creation has tremendous potential. There’s just one problem. Many small business owners don’t know how to achieve a satisfactory ROI when producing and distributing web content.

Are you looking to elevate your marketing efforts? Do you want to be 100% certain you’re spending your budget on the right tactics? If that’s the case, your business website needs the following types of content.

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TOFU (top of the funnel) content

Whether you’re just starting to invest in content marketing or have been at it for a while, there’s one thing you must do if you want to see results. You need to create and publish content that aligns with your prospects’ position in the sales funnel.

You can boost brand awareness by distributing posts that answer your target audience’s questions. Moreover, you can move people through the sales funnel more quickly. And you can encourage prospects to convert and even drive brand loyalty.

For most businesses, the point of investing in content marketing is to build brand and product awareness, establish brand authority, and generate organic traffic. And to reach any of these goals, the type of content your business website needs is TOFU (top of the funnel) content.

Now, you can choose to invest in many types of TOFU content.. These include blog posts, social media updates, ebooks, infographics, etc. A business owner should hire a software development team, such as Lemberg Solutions, to create a nice website so that the investment in content will bring much more value.

However, if you want the biggest bang for your buck, you’ll focus on the following two formats, which will deliver impressive results.

Introductory posts & ultimate guides

Are you targeting people just beginning their buyer’s journey? If so, they’ll need help understanding complex concepts.

Do your best to familiarize your audience with your solutions. Explain how your products/services solve specific pain points. And do you want to help web visitors walk away with a positive buying experience? Then use TOFU content to call prospects’ attention to strategies that will boost their satisfaction after they convert.

January’s Continuous Glucose Monitors guide shows how effectively this brand does it. In the article, the brand answers all questions about who CGM (continuous glucose monitoring) is for. Furthermore, it explains how people can use CGM to manage diabetes or improve their health.

What particularly stands out about this brand’s approach is the FAQ section at the bottom of the page. There, prospects can find quick answers to all their questions. The brand also encourages them to check out the product to see if it meets their needs.

Screenshot of the January website showing the FAQ section of its guide to CGM

(Image Source)

How-to posts

There’s plenty of research about the best ways to generate organic traffic with website content. According to the SemRush The State of Content Marketing report for 2022, it is to publish how-to posts. This type of content drives 1.5x more traffic than posts without the words “how to” in the title. And, if you think about it, the findings prove that consumers want quality information to help solve their pain points.

So, if you’re exploring effective content strategies for your small business, make sure you produce at least a few “how-to” articles. These will attract prospects. And they’ll help introduce web visitors to your offer.

A great example of a business doing this comes from Affinda. This brand develops custom AI solutions, which means it’s working in a specific and technically-oriented niche. Yet, the brand’s target audience doesn’t consist of technical experts. On the contrary, Affinda creates solutions that automate data entry for small business owners.

The truth is that these people aren’t likely to understand the concept of AI. Nor will they be capable of developing these solutions internally.

That’s why Affinda published a How to Automate Data Extraction from Invoices guide. The resource teaches web visitors everything they need to know about automated data extraction. And it does so in an approachable manner. It makes prospects more likely to try out the product demo. And ultimately, the post helps Affinda boost conversions.

Screenshot of article explaining how to automate data extraction from invoices

(Image Source)

Newsletter

The latest Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report revealed a fascinating piece of info. The most effective traffic channel for boosting conversion rates for SaaS businesses in 2021 was email. In fact, it had an impressive 21% median conversion rate.

In some ways, this isn’t much of a surprise. After all, the people subscribed to a newsletter are usually high-quality leads. Being subscribers means they’re either interested in keeping up with updates from a brand. Or they’ve already invested in its products and plan on continuing to do so. Moreover, they expect valuable tips about Cloud Management Software Market in case you present yourself as an expert and can share insights through newsletters about this market.

It’s easy to conclude that email marketing makes for one of the best types of content your website needs. But remember. Its effectiveness depends on one crucial element. A dedicated newsletter section.

True, you could argue that a newsletter section is the same thing as your blog. However, it might not be a bad idea to create a dedicated Newsletter page, like on Anne Handley’s website. Why? Well, it’s simple.

Not only does this content strategy create a separation between regular content and that meant for email subscribers. But, the marketer also uses the space to explain the value it plans on delivering in its biweekly emails. Furthermore, this strategy also turns this section of the website into a Newsletter Archive, which transforms it into a rich archive filled with helpful, industry-leading advice for marketers and business owners. And best of all, it’s guaranteed to benefit anyone who reads any of the articles.

Newsletter archive section on the Anne Handley website

(Image Source)

Interactive & personalized content

Every year, McKinsey does extensive research on consumer sentiment and behavior. This year, the organization discovered that 70% of people want personalized experiences from brands.

Upon reading this, your initial reaction may be to add a cross-selling feature to your e-commerce store. Or, it might encourage you to segment your email marketing efforts. True, both of these are highly beneficial solutions.

However, it might not be a bad idea to also play around with types of content that meet your audience’s specific needs.

Consider the benefits of creating interactive content. By publishing something similar to Unscramblex’s Scrabble Word Finder, you can effectively encourage website visitors to interact with your content. Moreover, you can incentivize them to stay on your website for longer. And you can inspire them to perceive your brand as a trustworthy resource of relevant information/solutions.

Screenshot showing the interactive feature on the Unscramblex website

(Image Source)

Do you want to take things up a notch? In that case, you could publish content that allows your audience to personalize the way it looks/performs.

The brand MarketBeat does this with its Best Dividend Stocks page. This valuable resource is updated daily. But there’s one thing that sets it apart from similar stock overviews. It allows readers to filter results based on country, sector, market cap, media sentiment, and analyst ratings, which isn’t something that many other websites do.

Content filters on the MarketBeat website

(Image Source)

Finally, if you’re interested in harnessing the power of interactive and personalized content to give your audience what they want (and need), don’t forget that there’s another format you should consider adding to your business website: quizzes.

The Olay website includes a beautifully designed Personalize My Routine page. It’s an excellent solution because it allows web visitors to take an eight-minute quiz to find their optimal skincare regime. The results include an interactive map of the web visitor’s selfie, with concern areas clearly pointed out. There’s also a list of several product recommendations with information on why the product is proposed and how it could help relieve skin issues and dehydrated skin.

Skin advisor evaluation quiz on Olay website

(Image Source)

Product updates

So far, we’ve covered website content made for the pre-purchase stages of the buyer’s journey. But we still haven’t addressed the absolute winner content type for boosting customer retention.

We live in a world where consumers aren’t particularly loyal to brands.

In fact, research shows that a growing number of buyers are switching brands either due to financial reasons or because they’re seeking a better experience. It’s essential for a business website to invest in the right web content. Ideally, that content should improve the customer experience and inspire loyalty.

Product updates are an excellent example of this content format. Generally conceived as short news segments, they inform users about bug fixes and newly developed features. Thanks to this, product updates allow your business to accomplish two things.

On the one hand, they help you continually communicate with your users, which helps you keep your solutions at the top of their minds (and makes people more likely to engage with your products). On the other hand, these updates allow you to prove that you’re a customer-oriented organization dedicated to delivering a continually positive customer experience.

Businesses like Flamingo do product updates spectacularly. They publish a dedicated post every few months and describe what they did to make the product perform better. Look at how, in the example below, Flamingo announces a new software feature. Moreover, check out how the brand uses screenshots to quickly educate users about how to implement the newly developed function in their workflows.

It’s a super simple, cost-effective strategy. Yet it works marvelously. It provides Flamingo’s customers with value. Reinforces their impression that they’ve made the correct decision when choosing this brand’s product. And it maximizes their chances of staying loyal customers for years to come.

Screenshot of instructions teaching users how to use Flamingo slash commands with Slack

(Image Source)

Case studies & original research

Lastly, as you explore the types of content your business website needs, don’t forget that one of the best reasons to invest in content marketing is to boost your brand’s credibility. And fortunately, there are plenty of formats that can help you do this.

To elevate your marketing strategy with conversion-boosting content, start with case studies. These in-depth instances of social proof are an excellent way to present your target audience with real-life examples of how your solutions have helped existing customers. More than that, they’ll give prospects a better idea of what kinds of outcomes they can expect when buying your products/solutions.

The brand Nosto has mastered the art of writing a conversion-boosting case study. If you look at its website, you’ll find dozens of engaging reports. Each of these describes the brand’s customers’ journey towards impressive business results.

For instance, check out this report on how one of the brand’s customers increased its AOV (average order value) by 36%. You’ll quickly see the value that case studies could bring to your business as well.

It’s also worth mentioning that Nosto regularly sends its newest case studies to leads yet to convert. It uses email marketing to do this, which is a great choice. Not only because email is a cost-effective distribution channel. But also because it’s effective at inspiring people to convert, that is, to try out Nosto’s solutions.

Case study showing the effects of using Nosto's onsite content personalization

(Image Source)

Alternatively, you could conduct your own research. Then publish reports or put together gated resources like the Getting Started ebook from GorillaBow. This ebook teaches buyers how to get started with their new workout equipment.

Screenshot of resources section on Gorilla Bow website

(Image Source)

Now, as you start investing time and money into producing research reports and ebooks, you’ll have to decide whether you’ll give them away for free to anyone who wants them. Alternatively, you can put them behind a sign-up wall to capture leads.

Remember, there’s no universal answer to which of these things you should do. So, instead of following trends or tips, decide what will bring more value to your business. It might be building awareness and brand credibility. Or it could be capturing new leads you can nurture into paying customers.

In closing

There you have it, the five types of content your business website needs if you’re after next-level results. All five of these content types serve distinct purposes and work in different ways to help you achieve your business goals.

As you choose which ones to employ, start with the ones likely to deliver an instantly high ROI. As you progress towards a more elaborate content creation strategy, you’ll have a better idea of what your audience appreciates. Then, you can start adding more formats to your website. And you can begin to implement advanced small business content marketing tactics to position your business as an industry leader and niche go-to.

Natasha Lane
Natasha is a lady of a keyboard and one hell of a geek. She has been working for, and collaborating with, individual clients and companies of all sizes for more than a decade. Natasha specializes in writing about design, branding, digital marketing, and business growth. She is also addicted to art in all its forms and grilled tofu.
Natasha Lane
Natasha is a lady of a keyboard and one hell of a geek. She has been working for, and collaborating with, individual clients and companies of all sizes for more than a decade. Natasha specializes in writing about design, branding, digital marketing, and business growth. She is also addicted to art in all its forms and grilled tofu.