Copyright 2006 Angela Booth

You have a Web site. You're disappointed.

Your site just hasn't lived up to promises like: "Get a Web site -- you can do non-stop business 24x7, every day of the year"! Your site has been live online for six months and you haven't made a single sale. You doubt that you ever will.

Want to know why your site isn't selling? It's simple. There's not enough content.

Use your imagination, and come with me for a moment, as we walk through a local mall -- any mall. Let's go into this shoe shop. Do you like those Nikes? Want to try them on? It's OK, I'll wait while you buy the shoes.

Now, what made you buy the shoes? You were given dozens of signals that prompted you to buy, because you had enough information. A Web site doesn't have the advantages of a shop in a mall. You have to give your visitors enough information so that they feel comfortable doing business with you. People feel at ease when you have enough content (that is, text, images, multimedia) on your site to prompt them to buy.

Here are five ways in which more Web content helps you to sell more:

1. More Web content brings more traffic, and more traffic brings more sales

When you've got content, you can use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to bring more traffic to your site. The Web search engines (Google etc) are indexing software. If you have a four-page site, with 200 words on each page, you're giving Google just 800 words to index. A few more pages with more words will make a lot of difference.

2. You can target the Long Tail of Web surfers

Chris Anderson's Wired article coined the term "The Long Tail". His book of the same name was published in 2006. As applied to Web content, you can target the Long Tail of Web surfers if you offer more information on your site: you increase the chance that you'll reach the people who are most interested in what you're selling, because more people will find you via the search engines.

3. You can instill enough confidence in your visitors so they feel comfortable buying from you

Compare your Web site to the shoe store in the mall. Your visitors can't know more about you than what's on your site -- are you giving them the confidence that you're a good company from which they can buy with confidence? You're going to have to work hard to give them confidence. Give them the information they need to feel comfortable buying from you.

This is where a blog helps your site, because although you're targeting a global audience, people are individuals, and you make one sale at a time. When you blog, you're adding content to your site, and giving people confidence that they know you and your business.

4. You can establish yourself as an authority in your industry

If you've got a tiny site, unless you've got an additional platform, such as a bricks and mortar store, a book, or a catalog, you may be an expert in what you do or sell, but you need to be able to show this. Saying on your home page "We're the greatest" doesn't help, unless you provide evidence.

5. You build Trust Rank with the search engines, which delivers more traffic

With millions of new Web pages being created every day, it's harder for search engines to decide which sites to return as query results. It seems that Google and Yahoo are starting to estimate the value of pages according to trust factors. No one knows how the search engines calculate trust, but offering more content on your site is a way to add to your trustability, especially when other sites begin to link to yours.

So, now you have five good reasons to add content to your Web site. Remember the shoe store. You were told in hundreds of ways that you could buy at the store with confidence. More Web content gives you more ways to convince your visitors to buy from you.