I am a firm believer that content, especially on your website, is king. It is what sets you apart from the other, boring companies that compete against you.

While pretty design is important, your content is what can give you the substance you need to attract and keep quality website visitors. You don't want to be a pretty face with nothing inside that is of any worth.

Aside from communicating with your website visitors, the content on your website also serves as a very important component of your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Content is what allows your website visitors to find you when performing a search on a search engine.

Hopefully it's needless to say that it is very important that you take the time to evaluate the content that is currently on your website to understand how it stacks up. In fact, this should be done every few months to ensure information is current and that you are still optimizing your website for the keywords you would like to be found for. Since Googlebot, and other search crawlers, are constantly combing the Internet, when you write new content that is relevant to your business, it will be found and available for searchers.

When evaluating your content, be sure to ask yourself the following questions:

• What message am I trying to convey? - The content on your website allows you to express your voice and your brand to the your audience. Are you trying to teach, convey emotion or simply trying to get someone to buy? Do you even understand your message?

• What do I want the user to do? - Adding a call to action at the end of the statement may work to drive traffic to certain areas of your site. A properly placed "Do It Now" button can increase that likelihood even more. Keep in mind that a website visitor may not know exactly where to find a contact form. Make it as easy as possible for your website visitors to find the page you want them to find.

• What keywords am I optimizing for? - Always use the keywords you are currently optimizing for in your content. That being said, don’t overemphasize the use of keywords in your content as the language may sound forced. Instead, let the content flow naturally and speak to what it is you do.

Things to avoid when writing content:

• Grandiose or superfluous language that will confuse your audience. When you make your language too colorful then your audience may feel that you are bloviating for the sake of bloviating.
• Forced use of keywords. In other words, too many instances of the same keyword on the page that will make the keyword seem like it's the only keyword you want. Keyword, keyword. Get it?
• Too much content. Don't use 100 words when 50 will do.
• Technical or industry jargon that only a handful of people understand. Define your acronyms, technical terms or jargon on each page it's used as though no one gets it.
• No clear call to action. If they don't know what you want them to do, the likelihood is high they won't do it.

Writing the perfect content is a process and may take a while to develop. Don’t stress out over writer’s block because there will be times that you can't avoid it. Just take it one step at a time and you'll get better at it.

Oh, and if you don't get the reference of the photo, click here.