Do you know what the most important part of your online strategy should be?  No, it’s not building traffic, but that’s important.  No, it’s not branding and looking good – but you’re close.

Content and messaging.  The key to a successful online presence.

Why is content so important?

Everyone says “content is king.”  But why?  Well consider the context and the environment that your customer is in when they ‘meet you’ online:

• Unlike in the real-world, the only clues to your reputation and your worthiness are the ones you give them.  In the real world, I can see how nice your bicycles are before I rent one or watch and see how safe your adventure tour looks before I hand over my cash.  Online, well, there’s no context – it’s a flat wall where you have to provide all the details.
• When we meet in person, you can talk to me and I’ll observe your body language, your tone and eye contact.  Online, there is tone and by incorporating videos you can also express some of that charisma if you’ve got it.  But it’s just not the same.  Online you have to work harder and smarter to make your point.  In most cases, this means making your point very clearly and quickly.
• If I don’t like your real-world offering, I’ve got to walk way.  There’s an opportunity for you to make a first impression and then you can gauge and react. The online equivalent? the back button.  Swift, quick, and nearly painless.

At the end of the day, it is content — text, audio, photo and video — that you use to explain to your ideal customer why your travel and tourism offering is the best.  It is the best, right?  Why settle for anything less than the best content to describe it?

So, What are the Rules?

If writing online content is so important, then what are the rules for writing online, you might ask?  Well…there aren’t any.  Every situation is different, so you end up with the classic “…it depends.”

However, there are several tips and techniques that you can use to make your writing persuasive and effective. You’ll find these tips in the latest TOP do-it-yourself guide, Write Right Online:

Here’s what one of our do-it-yourself customers said about the guide:

That this book uses specific examples to support general statements is very helpful. I particularly liked the headline examples. I have found too many “helpful” books or articles are long on glib statements of “what” to do and woefully short on “how” to do it.
- Donna Zabel, Online Travel Agent

What’s In it?

Well, I was a little annoyed by the fact that if a small business owner wanted this kind of information, you’d have to spend hundreds of pounds/dollars on a high-pressure copywriting course.   I’m not about high-pressure sales, and I think in an industry like this one, that type of marketing only results in frightening people away.

So I put together a collection of easy-to-read, easy-to implement techniques to make your online content work smarter.  Write so that your prospects can find you, write so that your prospects understand you.

Some of the specific things included:

• classic copywriting techniques – the same ones that traditional media still use.  These apply to your offline marketing as well as online – a two for one!
• technical tweaks - you won’t find unfriendly jargon here.  But you will find some tips that are super-easy and will really make your ideal customers happy.
• formatting and making a first impression – put your best foot forward!  It’s hard to change impressions online, especially considering folk have plenty of other places to choose from.

Keep in Mind…

Remember, your online content is your 24×7 sales force.

Online information is easily shared, which is good for you if you have great content and bad for you if you don’t.

Write Right Online can help.

A Guided Tour?  Cool!

I know not everyone is in a place financially to afford our one-on-one services.  And even though our do-it-yourself guides are not only practical but effective, sometimes it helps to just have that little push or a few coaching points to really make a huge difference.

That’s why we’re now offering a guided tour option with each of our Just What Works guides and Mastery Guides.  For Write Right Online, this is a set of two hours of discounted one-one-one consulting time.   Together, we’ll review your existing content and look at how the guide techniques can be applied, and I’ll suggest the tips from the guide that will make the biggest impact.  That way, you can get your contact on the fast track and get back to running your business.

To Learn More…

Both the guide itself as well as the guided tour option can be found on the Write Right Online page.  Check it out – it might be the simplest yet most effective way to improve your online strategy.

Photo by 10ch