8 Methods Of Adding More Content To Your Site
By Matt Jackson (c) 2007

Content is king and your content site is your kingdom.
When the adage "content is king" was first coined, the
web was, in many respects, a simpler place for
Webmasters. Creating a website with ten to twenty pages
of keyword rich content would generate excellent search
engine results and a mass of traffic as a result. Note
that keyword rich has now been replaced by keyword
optimized – a subtle difference, but a difference
nevertheless.

However, the web evolved (difficult to imagine that
it's only now considered web 2.0). With the evolution
of the web came a much greater demand from web users.
Where the static content site was once the epitome of
everything good about the Internet, that is less true
of the most recent incarnation of the World Wide Web.
Your website visitors demand more, but are you able to
offer it? We look at various methods of including more
content on your website.

More Pages

OK, we'll deal with the most obvious method first. 
Add more pages. It's simple and it might be considered
old school to many, but it still has a place. The more
pages of content you have, the more information you can
provide and the more keywords you can target. The math 
is simple and the technique is devastatingly simple.

Try to add new pages for new topics and, if a particular
topic looks like being too verbose, split the page down
into several parts. Hosting plans usually allow for a lot
of disk space so you should have no problems with space
limitations in this respect. Content Management Systems
are often included as part of a hosting control panel,
again making it much easier to add more pages to your 
website.

Add An Article Directory

This is a similar approach to adding more pages in many
respects except that it allows for a slightly different
structure. An article directory is an excellent way to
offer visitors more information on the topic of your
site. Articles can be categorized, and include deep
links to the appropriate pages of your site.

Articles are very marketable, in the sense that if they
are well written, other websites may be inclined to link
to the article or even republish it in full with all 
links to your site left in place. If you simply want to
add more content, and use the resulting pages as online
real estate, then you could consider accepting article 
submissions from other authors and Webmasters. You receive
free content while the authors receive exposure.

News Section

News items related to your industry or even your business 
can be a good excuse to regularly add content. As a general
rule they will contain what will turn out to be reasonable
long tail search results and you can optimize the pages.
Good news or press releases may be picked up by other 
industry news sites providing you with more exposure as well 
as genuinely useful content for your site.

Let's not overlook that it's always good to brag. 
Modesty will not win you customers, so if your business
or website achieves something big then brag about it.
Inform your customers how they too can benefit and the
advantages that your news gives to them.

Forums

Some believe that the forum is becoming outdated by more
modern web 2.0 applications and portals. While this may
be true, the forum can still be used to your advantage
although only in the appropriate circumstances. Forums
provide a means for people to communicate with one another,
and if you can create a vibrant and lively forum, you will
instantly attract regular visitors.

The forum can also be used to direct your website visitors.
If there's a particularly hot topic, then link to it from
one of your pages. If somebody (even you) posts a 
particularly beneficial post, then link to it from one 
or more of your pages. Conversely, you can also point forum
readers to the main pages of your site. It is possible, 
with certain forum applications, to replace all instances
of a word with a link to one of your pages – a quick way
to flow traffic into your main site.

Blogs

Who hasn't heard of blogs, right? They caused a huge 
debate when first introduced. Early bloggers claimed 
they would be the future of the Internet while more
skeptical marketers and Webmasters decided their 
popularity would dwindle eventually. The former certainly
came true and it seems there are blogs everywhere, 
within every industry, and on every conceivable
topic.

Blogs have been turned into books, books into blogs.
Blogs have even been turned into TV series and, again,
vice versa. If you're not blogging then you're not
communicating because a blog really does provide a 
superb way of communicating with your visitors and your
customers. And, you guessed it, it allows you to add a lot
of good content to your site and will usually draw
good search engine traffic for your efforts.

Frequently Asked Questions

An old favorite of the Internet marketer. The FAQ page
serves a number of purposes, but primarily it is used to
prevent an excessive number of phone calls and emails with
simple questions. An FAQ page can also be used to highlight
some of the main benefits of your service or product. 
For example, if you sell trainers, and deliver them the next
day, one of your questions could be:

"Q - How long before my Nike trainers are delivered?"

"A - We offer next day delivery on all orders placed
before 2pm"

That's a very simplistic view, but it can help to sell
your product. Also ensure that you include some of your
more important keywords through the questions and answers.

Knowledgebase

A knowledgebase is essentially the next step up from an
FAQ page. Instead of having a single page with all of your
questions and answers you would create an article or short
article that concentrates on one question or one tutorial.
Once you have built up a good number of these you have an
excellent point of resource, a good way to attract visitors,
and a method of keeping unnecessary customer communications
to a minimum.

Feeds

RSS and XML feeds are not new, but they are good for
adding content to your site. Look for other sites within
your industry that offer feeds and embed them into a page
or several of the pages of your site. This can help with
SEO because the better feeds update regularly and the search
engine spiders believe your site content updates regularly.

These are just some of the more basic but effective methods
of adding more and more content to your website. Anything
that enables you to add more words has the ability to help
increase traffic and conversions, and provide your customers
with an invaluable resource that they will hopefully return
to time and time again.

If you don't already have a blog, then get one. At least
one. You can combine a blog with other methods of adding
content. For instance, you can add other people's articles,
or your own articles to the pages of your blog.
Alternatively, you can use a blog as the news section of 
your website. They are easy to design and typically very
easy to establish and integrate into your website.
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