Websites need content. It’s as simple as that. Sure, you’ll occasionally come across a website that appears near enough empty but it’s rare for it to appear in the search results for any length of time – amongst other things, Google monitor how long people stay on a site and they tend to click away from empty sites pretty fast.

Website content means different things to different people but generally it includes written words (the easiest for Google to index), images and maybe videos. Some content can be interactive – maybe with comments from site visitors – but it usually starts off as just words on a page.

Creating it is the task you need to do – regularly!

Start by deciding on a topic.

It’s usually best to keep pages down to one or maybe two topics, otherwise you run the risk of rambling and boring your visitors.

If you’re stuck for a topic, do a search on Google.

You’ll get suggestions show up as you type.

Depending on your search settings, there may be as few as 4 suggestions or as many as 10 suggestions. I prefer the “more the merrier” option, so I make sure that I’ve changed the setting to switch off Google’s Instant suggestions – that allows them to increase the number of suggestions they make because it uses less computer power.

Then drill down the ideas.

You’re looking for ideas that almost write the article’s content for you, so a phrase with 5, 6, 7 or more words in it is ideal.

Then either start typing away (which is what I normally do) or jot down a few sub-sections that you can write a paragraph or two about.

That’s a super-simple way if you’re a relative novice at creating content because it takes all the hard work out of it. Anyone who knows even a smattering of information about their topic can write a few sentences about a sub-section of it.

And that’s all you need to do.

If I’m working that way, I’ll aim for between 3 and 7 sub sections. There are no hard and fast rules for content like this – I tend to find that the number of sections leaps out at me after a few seconds thought on what to include.

Once you start typing your content, things can change.

On more than one occasion, I’ve set out to write a series of tips and found that I’ve poured so much information onto the page that I’ve only covered the first one.

If that happens to you – congratulations!

It means you can come back later (where later is just later in life, not necessarily later today) and write more content.

Then give your newly written content a once over – I tend to press the Publish button and then view the page I’ve just written but you may prefer to read it through in the page editing panel.

Just as there are no hard and fast rules for the amount of tips or other content, there are no hard and fast rules for the length of it either.

The “rule” for this is that it should stay interesting – don’t bore your audience.

So if you only need a short page, that’s all you need to write.

If, on the other hand, you need more space, do that.

Web pages aren’t like the printed word – there’s no finite amount of space to fill. Instead, they stretch to fit – the scroll bar takes care of that.

And if you’d like to know more about content creation, click this link.