Knowing your audience is imperative to achieve high conversion rates with your web content.

As you attempt to define your reader, pay heed to his knowledge of the subject. If he’s informed, get right to the key facts and figures. Otherwise, you’ll bore him and turn him off with generic information.

If he’s not well versed with the subject, ensure you provide some basic, high-level information, and offer plenty of references to helpful background material. Sidebars can also be an effective tool in this case.

If you need to cater to a mixed crowd, which is common on the Web, provide high-level material, but include clearly labeled links to all the particulars. This is a web content strategy called link layering, and it’s an incredibly effective way to provide online visitors information that’s relevant to their specific needs.

For instance, a personal wellness coach might have a page that outlines what services and products she offers clients:

Discover Dr. Smith’s unique approach to herbal body cleansing, menopause, chronic fatigue…

In the above example, it would be beneficial to link each of the topics — herbal body cleansing, menopause and chronic fatigue – to a separate page that comprises additional details. That way, the extra information is there for the taking — if desired.

That’s the beauty of the Web. Your web content can cater to specific people about very specific topics, which is the key to engaging visitors.

Keywords are the foundation to successful web content.

Use the right ones, and your business can thrive. Use the wrong ones, and your website will reap you few rewards, if any. The trick is to ensure your web content writer or writers use the same language as your target audience.

Business executives and managers are often surprised when they find out internal lingo isn’t used by prospects and customers. “Talk shop” with consumers and you risk alienating them.

For instance, airline executives religiously use the term “reduced fares.” But that term is used in search engines less than 10 times a day – and that’s on a global scale.

Meanwhile, “cheap flights” is plugged into search engines by Internet users more than 10,000 times a day.

If you were running an airline, which search term would you want to target?

Showing consumers respect turns browsers into buyers. Yet, when consumers reach out, their inquiries often seem to fall on deaf ears.

In the digital age, a prompt response is anticipated – always. And when it’s not delivered, it can easily kill the sale.

Fortunately, marketing firms are providing a host of innovative solutions to assist businesses with customer acquisition cycles on and off the Internet.

Read entire online marketing article.

Purposefully written web content that effectively tells your prospects why they should buy from you can really help your business on the sales front. In fact, if done right, it can completely disqualify your competitors.

As noted in the article Brand strategy: distinct or extinct, you should leverage your business’ unique points and strengths, which may entail your:

• Selection
• Experience
• Knowledge
• Credentials
• Expediency
• Style
• Technology
• Geography
• Alliances
• Tools
• Customer service

But when you do, make sure you nail the point on the head. Don’t be subtle. Use clear, short and relevant web content to drive the message home.

And don’t be afraid to repeat your most potent points. It will drill the facts and ideas into your prospect’s brain, and make it memorable.

It’s a sound way to exclude your competitors from the final decision-making process.

Just one comment captures just how fast the Web’s killing TV. 

A friend and his crew taping a 2010 Olympics-related event in Vancouver were approached by a group of kids, ages six to 10 years old, who asked excitedly: “Cool, are we going to be on YouTube?” 

YouTube. Forget about TV from the decades past. And when the group was told no, but that they’d be featured on TV, that news was met with a big, disappointing “Awwww.” 

The new generation is onto something. 

Sooner than later, those TVs in the family rooms will be giant screen monitors powered by the Web. The tipping point is here.

Hitwise announced that Google accounted for 67.90 per cent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending April 26, 2008.

Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.28, 6.26 and 4.17 per cent, respectively.

The remaining 45 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.40 per cent of U.S. searches.

Author and super marketer Seth Godin made a good point on his blog, where he touches on the fact that the closer you are to the point of need, the more you can charge clients.

In one example, he cites pizza at the airport costs five times more than pizza on the way to the airport. That’s true in most cases, including Frankfurt and London Heathrow, where the price for a hot dog and a beer will give you the impression you’re fine dining.

However, some airports choose not to charge premium. The Vancouver International Airport is a prime example.  Tenants are required to offer “street pricing,” which means franchises like Flying Wedge Pizza can’t inflate their prices. A big mama’s bacon special will cost you $4.99 on the east side of town, and it’ll cost you $4.99 as you’re running for the departure gate.

As a result, many people skip a meal in anticipation of eating at the Vancouver airport. Or passengers grab some grub ‘to go’ in a bid to avoid preservative-laden airline food. And they even shop at the airport. Why not? You’re checked in and now you can cruise for last-minute gifts. Chocolates? Books? Some souvenirs, anyone?

It goes to show, when the opportunity is there, charging premium is an effective scheme. But when such circumstances appear, it can also be wise not to charge top dollar.

Other opportunities can emerge,  fuelled by appreciation and loyalty.

Consumers rule the Web. Consider bloggers; they freely praise or pan products and services, and companies can’t stop it.

While errors and incidents were easily swept under the rug during past decades, the Internet has made it easy for consumers to share horror stories with the masses.

When complaints about ongoing no-shows and screw ups fell upon deaf ears, I felt compelled to share my story about Rogers Customer Service. Now, when someone types Rogers customer service into Google and friends, there’s a good chance they’ll read about the poor service.

Meanwhile, when I was looking for Kauai vacation rentals, I read some shining reviews. Objective feedback – good or bad — has vast influence.

These valuable bits of information shared by consumers around the world often tell the real stories as companies can’t embed their spin. But they can respond.

And if they don’t, it’s bad for the both the brand and the bottom line.

At a recent event in Vancouver, business coach Mark Wardell spoke about the importance of a business’ market position.

He suggested: ask yourself, do your customers clearly understand why your business is unique and why they need you?

“The answer to this question determines if they will continue to do business with you,” he said. “Conversely, if you are seen as part of a homogeneous category of business, your selling prices will be dictated by your competitors.”

And, he stressed, this is not a good thing — especially in our current economic times.

Wardell also makes interesting points in a market positioning video on his business consulting website.

Google published its earnings last month, reporting its search result sites generated revenues of $3.40 billion in the first quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, an iProspect study showed that 60.5 per cent of Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL users selected a natural (unpaid) search result over paid search result as the most relevant on a sample query. Additionally, 60.8 per cent of Yahoo and 72.3 per cent of Google search engine users chose a natural search result as the most relevant.

The conclusion: appearing on natural rankings is most valuable to businesses. Natural search results are more trusted by online users and attract more clicks.