5 Reasons to Future-Proof Your Website

Creating a website is not a small undertaking. Though you may have hired a designer and web developer to help you get started, you will still need significant work creating your page and blog content. The last thing you want to do is redo your website and its content annually or even every other year.

For many marketers, the unpredictable future is a major concern. Rapidly changing conditions, evolving digital marketing trends and technologies, and shifting customer preferences can quickly render a brand’s messaging irrelevant. Keeping up with content marketing trends can feel like an exhausting game of whack-a-mole. Threats can arise from anywhere, whether it’s fierce competition, a new regulation, or the emergence of new technology and artificial intelligence (AI). The solution is simple: future-proof your brand web messaging by reassessing your marketing strategies and making them less vulnerable to upcoming changes.

Having a website that can evolve with new technology is essential to the longevity of your business’s web presence. A well-designed and optimized website should be able to adjust its layout and features to accommodate any future changes in digital technology while staying consistent with the core elements of a company’s brand identity. Your business must offer relevant content catered to your audience’s immediate questions and concerns. With all that you do to keep your business running smoothly, this may seem out of reach. Thankfully Invite Them Home has experts in creating content that will future-proof your website so you don’t fall behind.

Table of Content

What does future-proofing mean in terms of website content?

Reasons to future-proof my website

5 Ways to Future-Proof your website

FAQ about the Future of Content Marketing

What does this mean for your future content marketing?

What does future proof mean when it comes to website content?

In the dictionary definition of the phrase:

future-proof (verb)

“to design software, a computer, etc. so that it can still be used in the future, even when technology changes”

But what does that mean for your business and your marketing strategy?

Future-proofing in web design and development involves practices that ensure your website stays relevant over the long term. This includes implementing responsive design and staying up-to-date with Google’s algorithm changes. Future-proofing is all about creating flexible and versatile content that can adapt to new content channels while remaining competitive with other companies offering your products or services. By being proactive instead of reactive, you can stay ahead of the game and ensure your website stays relevant for years to come.

Why do I need to future-proof my website?

Technology is in a perpetual state of forward motion, and online platform standards are constantly evolving. Past social media and digital marketing strategies may no longer be effective, while responsive design and voice search optimization have become indispensable. Creating a website that can withstand the test of time is no small feat in this dynamic online environment. Your web presence must be able to adapt to new technologies and trends in order to succeed in search engine rankings. Therefore, it is imperative to invest in a future-proof website that is both flexible and resilient. The main reasons to future-proof your website content:

#1 It keeps you competitive

As more companies flood the online marketplace with their ideas and products, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to grab and maintain user attention. Strong SEO efforts may help get eyes on your site, but if the static content fails to engage visitors, they’ll quickly bounce. Not only does this result in lost revenue, but it also negatively impacts your SEO ranking.

To succeed in this competitive landscape, it’s crucial to make your site stand out and leave a lasting impression on potential customers. Today, consumers typically conduct online research before making any purchase decisions, placing even more value on creating a memorable, unique user experience. In fact, a study found that 89% of consumers use the Internet to research products and services before making a purchase. You can’t risk letting your website fade into the background.

#2 It impacts your brand identity

As technological advancements continue, it may seem as though brand identity is becoming irrelevant. However, branding is actually becoming increasingly vital for creating awareness and influencing consumer preferences. While innovative methods allow brands to reach their intended audiences in new ways, they also bring new challenges. It’s crucial for brand owners to stay ahead of the curve and prepare for the future. The digital age has opened up opportunities for your brand to be experienced remotely, reducing the need for physical sales locations. This trend can be observed in the rise of online-only startups and concept stores. Augmented reality technology and video-based content also allow for the seamless integration of physical and digital buying experiences. To stay relevant, it’s crucial to incorporate your brand experience into the customer journey thoughtfully. Proactively plan for the growth of voice search and consider creating your own distinct brand voice to enhance your SEO strategy.

#3 It makes for a better user experience

Digital marketing encompasses two primary design categories: interface design and experience design. User interface (UI) design involves the visual aspects of a website such as button styles, color schemes, and other interactive elements. User experience (UX) design, on the other hand, focuses on ensuring the website is both aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. This requires building a technically sound web page that is simple to navigate and facilitates access to the desired information. To ensure your website’s success, prioritizing user experience is crucial. The ultimate goal of user experience is to deliver a seamless and enjoyable browsing experience. By improving the quality of your content, you can increase visitor satisfaction. On the other hand, developing content that does not quickly answer your audience’s concerns in a way that’s easy for them to understand will leave a lasting negative impression and can affect your search engine ranking.

#4 It improves your ROI

Keeping up with new technology can be a costly challenge for you as a website owner. The good news is that a complete website overhaul every time something changes is unnecessary. Future-proof and responsive web design provides flexibility, allowing your site to evolve with the latest standards for optimal user experience. This approach reduces expenses and produces a positive ROI in the long run. Another way that future-proofing increases ROI is by achieving strong organic search visibility through SEO. With sustained visibility over months and years, your SEO efforts produce priceless results that surpass those of paid strategies. Though SEO requires time, it’s essential to focus on a long-term content marketing strategy that protects your future while gaining results today. Our expert team at ITH will help you capitalize on this opportunity with future-proof SEO strategies.

5 Ways to Future-Proof Your Website

Now that we’ve seen the importance of a future-proof site for your business, how do you get it done?

#1 Make your content evergreen

You want to create valuable content that stays relevant to readers over a long period of time, which means you need evergreen content. Unlike other content that fades away with time, evergreen content remains fresh and popular long after publication. Creating successful evergreen articles and video content can be challenging, as popular industry topics have already been covered exhaustively. That’s why you need to add your unique perspective to these topics or search for long-tail keywords that can offer a different take on the subject. By doing so, your evergreen content will be valuable and move up in search engine rankings. Consider creating evergreen content in the format of listicles, how-to’s, product reviews, and video tutorials. Stay away from news and temporary topics that quickly become old and irrelevant.

#2 Keep up with industry trends

In addition to having solid evergreen content, you also need to keep up with industry trends in content marketing. We see content marketing evolving on a daily basis, and your site’s content needs to keep up. For instance, some 2023 content marketing trends include short-form videos, humorous content, and marketing your company’s values. Many content marketing trends are specific to your industry, so research what your target audience is talking about and try to be ahead of the game.

#3 Be a problem solver

Social media strategist Donna Moritz advises companies to “create quality content that helps your audience solve a problem. Write content that makes a difference for them and be consistent.” In today’s world, we rely heavily on the internet to seek out solutions to our problems. Specifically, guides and tutorials are among the most popular categories for online searches. If you want to ensure your content remains relevant for the future, it’s crucial to focus on creating pieces that answer readers’ questions. If you’re an expert in a particular area, this is an opportunity to share your knowledge and experience in a meaningful way. Understand what problems your target audience will encounter and create content with valuable information that solves those problems.

#4 Focus on long-form content

The definition of long-form content varies, but it typically refers to content that is 1200 words or more. Current statistics on content marketing show the top 10 rankings on Google average 1447 words, and articles with a word count between 2,250 and 2,500 earn the most organic traffic.

Long-form content holds more potential for shareability and SEO than shorter pieces. With more space to incorporate relevant keywords and phrases, your content can reach a wider audience. Also, the detailed and well-researched nature of long-form content helps establish you as an authority in your field.

You want to avoid a high bounce rate as a result of visitors leaving your website after viewing just one page. Making good-quality long-form content is the perfect solution. Comprehensive content with a high “content grade” consistently outperforms shorter blog posts. Publishing well-researched and reported articles can lower your website bounce rate and should be your first step toward success.

Despite the recent influx of clickbait, sponsored posts and listicles, quality, in-depth content remains in demand. Especially for complex topics or questions, readers seek articles that provide new insights and perspectives. Long-form content creation is an investment in time and money, but it’s an investment worth making. If you need help getting started, our copywriters at ITH are experts at delivering effective long-form content.

#5 SEO!

Incorporating effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies is essential for future-proofing your brand. A powerful SEO approach can help protect your brand during tough times and ensure its longevity. It’s also a more cost-effective approach than paid ads. To achieve future-proofing through SEO, you need predictive SEO. This means creating high-quality content on topics that will become popular with your target audience in the future. Don’t wait for a topic to trend before writing about it – instead, be proactive and predict what will be trending in the future. We will help you use data and research to analyze the wants and needs of your target audience. It’s crucial to engage with your audience on a deeper level by addressing issues that affect their daily life and business. Develop an in-depth understanding of your target audience, including their interests, needs, questions, and concerns. A transparent conversation not only connects your brand with your audience but allows you to rank better by reflecting real-life searches. Organic search drives traffic to your site and increases user engagement. As such, optimizing your organic search strategy is vital for future-proofing your brand. Keep up with search trends by routinely updating your content and SEO strategy. Use social media marketing to stay informed of trending topics. When conducting keyword research, we will focus on long-tail rather than short-tail keywords for better performance. Also, consider internal linking to drive traffic and improve the user experience. Invite Them Home uses professional tools along with Google Analytics to stay on top of hot keywords in your industry and develop valuable content based on our findings.

FAQ about the Future of Content Marketing

Now that we have some strategies for future-proofing your website content marketing strategy, what do we know about the future of content marketing?

The future of search with AI

Google and Bing are capitalizing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) by featuring it prominently in their search engine results. The result is what Google calls an “AI snapshot,” a quick and accurate summary of your search, supplemented by links to sites that confirm the summary. Instead of merely indexing websites, search engines such as Google are evolving to become answer engines, delivering efficiently what users need.

With the use of AI, search engines are better equipped to understand natural human language and identify the meaning behind search queries. Statistics show that there are currently 4.2 billion voice assistants in use, and this number is projected to reach 8.4 billion by 2024. Google reports that over 20% of the searches on mobile devices are done with voice searches. As more users embrace new technology, AI will play an increasingly prominent role in search engine technology.

Invite Them Home has been closely following the role of voice search and AI in search engine optimization. We will help your company navigate this new territory and help you with producing content in keeping with these upcoming trends.

ChatGPT and content marketing

ChatGPT by OpenAI is an AI-driven tool for human-like conversations and more. ChatGPT’s language model can answer questions and assist with various tasks, including composing emails, essays, and code.

Businesses are attempting to leverage ChatGPT’s natural language processing and GPT-3 technology for machine-generated content tailored to their audience’s interests and needs. This content marketing tool can also facilitate researching and curating content from multiple sources to aid in the content development process.

Content marketers can benefit from ChatGPT’s capabilities for content creation and curation, but the way it stands right now, the content generated by ChatGPT should only be a starting point. At ITH, we often utilize ChatGPT, Jassper, and other AI tools to guide us to produce highly optimized content that better connects with your target audience. While this in no way replaces the need for skilled copywrting and editing, it does allow us to be very efficient in producing content for our clients.

The future of search engines

While Google has been dominant for years, other search engines, namely Microsoft’s Bing, are starting to make a comeback. Tech giants Microsoft and Google are leading the way in AI-powered search results, unveiling their plans for AI conversational search engines. The competition between these two powerhouses is heating up, and the future of search is set to be transformed. The SEO tools we use at Invite Them Home are starting to take other search engines into consideration to stay on top of this shift.

Another prediction for the future of search is the use of advanced search engines. Gone are the days of relying solely on keywords and criteria when it comes to search engines. Today’s advanced search engines utilize natural language processing, query intent detection, and other artificial intelligence capabilities to provide users with a higher level of convenience and effectiveness.

But that’s just the beginning. Tomorrow’s advanced search engines will take things to an entirely new level. From speech to text and voice assistants to bots and more, search engines will continue to evolve to meet the growing demands of users.

What this means for your future content marketing

When it comes to web content marketing, future-proofing your content means never letting your guard down. As Strategic Advisor and Research Analyst Rebecca Lieb explains, “Content strategy is an iterative process. It can and should be reviewed at least biannually, preferably quarterly. That’s how you future-proof it. By continual evaluation, now and in the future.”

When you partner with our team at Invite Them Home, we will meet with you monthly to review the effectiveness of your content efforts against your competition and ensure you stay on top. If you want to increase your website traffic and lead generation in 2023 and beyond, future-proofing your website is not an option – it’s a must. Contact Invite Them Home today and set your business up for success tomorrow!

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