How to Source Content for your Website

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“Content is king.” If you’re at all familiar with the Internet, you’ve likely heard that saying before. That’s because no matter how overused and clichéd it may be, it’s usually true.

When you’re first getting started with a website, content is definitely the most important aspect to consider. There’s really no point in having a website if it’s without content, after all. Unfortunately, filling your website with stellar content isn’t as easy as it sounds.

To make things a little easier, we’ve put together a few different ways you can source awesome content for your website!

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Ask your customers

This one’s so simple it almost sounds too good to be true, right? Luckily, it’s not! Simply asking your customers what they’d like to see on your website is a fantastic, highly effective method of shaping your overall content strategy.

You’ve probably been in your industry for a while now, and you probably feel like you have a pretty good idea of what your customers want. Well, you’d be surprised. Many small business owners are much more disconnected from their target demographic than they think. This is through no fault of your own – it’s simply difficult to really put yourself in the shoes of a customer when you’re sitting on the other side of the desk.

There are a few simple ways of reaching out to your customers:

  • Ask them in person: Next time you’re talking business with your customers, simply inform them that you’re putting a website together and ask about what they’d like to see on it. Do this enough and you’ll easily identify hot topics for your site.
  • Create a survey: This can be done physically, in-store, or online (with a service like XXXX). To incentivize, you could offer a small discount on their next purchase or service renewal.
  • Mailing list: If you have a physical or email mailing list, reach out through that!

If you’re not convinced of this method, try it out for a few days. You may be surprised by what you find out.

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Check online forums

Sometimes, people may not give complete answers when questioned directly. Instead, head over to a user-content forum like Reddit or Quora where people discuss issues and questions of their own accord.

These two sites are both goldmines for sourcing content. You can narrow down your focus be sticking to sections of each site that are specific to your industry. Reddit does this through the use of “subreddits,” which are basically microforums focused on a single topic. Quora does this more traditionally, simply sorting questions into general categories.

You can search through a seemingly-endless list of past questions and discussions, and you’ll quickly start to pick out patterns. Anything that’s frequently asked, debated, or discussed should be added to your list of content ideas!

In addition to these two aggregation websites, seek out any smaller forums within your specific niche. Every industry has these out there – you just have to find them. The smaller forums can be even more helpful, because they’ve already distilled the user-base down to your target audience for you!

Looking to find the average website development cost in the USA? These web forums could be a great place to look.

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FAQFox

FAQFox is a more automated method of scraping content aggregations websites for ideas. You simply enter a keyword related to your industry, and then enter which websites you’d like the tool to scrape for ideas.

If you don’t yet have a list of viable websites to scrape, FAQFox offers a list of pre-set categories that will automatically populate the tools with relevant websites to search.

FAQFox then crawls through these websites, returning all results that appear to be questions (“How do I…”, “What are the…”, etc).

You’ll be presented with a neat, extensive list of questions and answers related to your niche. Again, the questions that appear over and over again are the ones you should focus on.

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Outsource to a professional copywriter

While this method does incur more of a cost than the others, it’s often the best route to follow for business owners who are still learning the ins and outs of maintaining a website.

There are copywriting-specific agencies out there that only do content creation, and there are also full-service options that can cater to your every need.

High quality copywriters either A) are already knowledgeable within your field, or B) are research experts that will put in the time to learn your industry inside and out.

Finding a good fit and working to establish an acceptable content creation process does requires some extra work upfront, but the pay-off is immense when you end up with a content creating machine that writes unique content perfectly tailored to your website.

Many copywriters will use all previous three methods, as well as additional sourcing strategies, to ensure they’re creating top-notch quality for you and your website.

If you aren't sure how many pages on a website are needed, please contact us so we can help find you the answer!

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In conclusion…

There are many different opportunities for content sourcing out there. Plenty of them can be done on your own, with just a little bit of learning involved. However, if you don’t want to get bogged down with week-to-week content creation, your best bet may be outsourcing all content creation to a professional.

No matter which path you choose, the Internet is rife with content opportunities. You just have to know where to look!

Fill out our free website cost calculator to get a quote for your custom web page design price.

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Content, while extremely important, is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to establishing a web presence. Dealing with your own website can be a daunting task, but we’ve got you covered.

We put together a free website cost estimate calculator that will help you gain a better understanding of what goes into the website creation process. It provides you with an overall cost estimate based on your personal needs, so you’ll have a point of reference going forward. Get your free estimate now!

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