Did you know there are 1.83 billion websites on the internet? This number might surprise you. How many of these websites might be well branded or just windows to nowhere? Most of all, how do you stand out from the crowd to attract and retain even a 10th of the 4.7 billion internet users in the world? It starts with a well-designed branded website and relevant content. In the Entrepreneur, branding is defined as "the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products." The more defined the branding is on your website, the better. Think of the world's top brands like Apple, Google, and Facebook, and what makes their brand unique? It's the content! This is what sets your website apart and delivers the right message to your online website visitor. The success of your website is based on its content. In this article, we shall look at the 5 top reasons why branded content and web design are so important in standing out from the sea of online websites. 1. It Increases the SEO of the Website The outcome of good SEO is targeted and active website visitors. Good SEO content appeals to both human visitors' search engines as well. When people are searching for videos, the search engine is looking at titles and descriptions. It's the text that gets searched, so, therefore, it's the text that must be optimized for the search engines. How does your website create optimized content? • Continuously increase the content on your website with key-word rich articles, blogs, or product descriptions. This helps with the indexing of your pages for search results. • Create relevant content that attracts visitors to stay on your site. The length of time visitors takes on your site signals to the search engines that there is quality content, and it improves its ranking. Remember that quality SEO is crucial to the success of any website content. 2. It Clearly Communicates Its Purpose for the Prospect To Learn The purpose of an informative website is to communicate helpful information to a specific user/audience so that the reader learns something new or understands a topic better. The internet has become a go-to place that consumers go to look for any and all information about a need or problem. If your business has an information-centric website that is customized for its target audience, prospective clients will find the consistent, trustworthy information they need and take action positively. Some creative ways to communicate your brand's content is with videos. Keep them short, entertaining, and informative in key places on your website for emphasis of an action. For example, a testimonial video on the product pages can urge the prospect to buy after hearing positive comments of past purchases. Using videos and written content creatively reduces the visitor bounce-off rate, as the prospects are attracted to read more of what you have to offer. 3. Attracts Prospects into Your Sales Funnel As visitors to your website's well-branded content increase, there's an opportunity to get them into your sales funnel, which is simply a series of steps that a prospect goes through to become a paying customer. The first step of a sales funnel is to offer a lead magnet that gives value to the prospect in exchange for their contacts. An example of a lead magnet could be a short E-book on 'The Ultimate Guide on Eating Out for Weight Watchers.' Other ideas include cheat sheets, Planners, Reports, and more. When your prospects give you their contacts for these lead magnets, you can continue contacting them with emails about your business, new products, and industry news. 4. Improves Credibility and Trust The quality of your website's content demonstrates your business's level of expertise in the product and services you offer. Whenever you publish an article or post an explainer video, you are providing valuable knowledge that can help prospects and leads make a more educated purchasing decision. Consumers remember the brand that provided them with the most information as the place they will buy. This belief and trust in the website's expertise give your consumer the peace of mind that you can handle future challenges. Past clients also need to be reminded of your brand's credibility and uniqueness. Research shows that the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while the chance of convincing a new customer to buy is 5%-20%. So, provide value for your old customer base and build more brand loyalty and stronger relationships. They are an advantage to your business not to be overlooked. 5. Create Brand Consistency Brand consistency is the act of delivering a similar brand messaging to all its graphics and written content. This ensures that your brand remains visible and can be recognized by your target audience groups. It's easy for a brand to lose consistency when they have a lot of content flowing from ad campaigns, branded marketing materials to digital and social media content. It's difficult to keep all these moving parts aligned without even noticing. Why does a consistent brand matter in your website and in the online and offline marketing efforts? The main reason is that it projects professionalism and reliability from strong credibility in the marketplace. The main way to maintain this is good design and consistent branding. The rewards may look minimal, but a good name is worth a lot more. Research by LucidPress shows that estimated that if brands were consistently maintained, they would expect to have a 33% increase in overall growth. Branded website content is not prioritized as much as web design and other online applications. The value and the effectiveness of website content are also very important to think through. When you combine all of the elements of design, development, and content, along with a powerful branded marketing mix, you can create a profitable website that draws in visitors and converts them to loyal customers as well as your greatest marketers. Get started today with our help at www.alphadigitalpro.com.