Unlike other marketing opportunities for your business, a website offers all the space you want to say what you need to say.
That isn’t the case with other marketing options where an extra page or an extra minute might double the price. Try doubling the size of your yellow pages ad or adding an extra few pages to your brochure without increasing the cost. The cost of megabytes and pixels for your website is negligible, so it doesn’t really matter if your site has five pages or 50.
The difficult part is that only the truly committed (and maybe your mom) will want to wade through 50 pages about your business. The key to taking advantage of all that space is twofold:
1. Valuable
There’s no point to having 50 pages of extra content if it’s not worth something to somebody. The key is to offer extra content that won’t fit in your brochure that’s still valuable:
- For a restaurant it might be a more detailed menu with a history of the favorite dishes or even recipes (the ones you’re willing to share).
- For a plumber it might be detailed descriptions of common problems and solutions (save your customer money on a tiny problem and they’ll be more likely to call you for a major problem).
- For a photographer it might be gallery after gallery of work samples (if your work speaks for itself, why limit yourself to just a few samples?).
- For a nonprofit it could be a constantly growing list of accomplishments, something that starts as news but turns into an archive of success you can point potential donors to.
2. Organized
Having a lot of content is no problem if it’s well organized. But if it’s a jumbled mess? That’s going to hurt you more than help you. Make sure your information is categorized, labeled and tagged so it’s easy to browse, easy to search and easy to find. Break up long chunks of text with headers, bulleted or numbered lists, and bold text. Consider highlighting gems on your homepage to draw people into your detailed content and showcase the breadth of information available. If you’re going to put a lot of content out there, you have to make sure people know it’s there.
A website can be a major boost to your business, especially when you take advantage of the nearly limitless real estate. Just be sure to keep it valuable and keep it organized.
