By far the most important and most overlooked component of a successful small business websites is the textual content of the website. The survey earlier in this chapter states that 96.3% of small business websites suffer from poor content. Wouldn’t you like to be in the top 3.7%?

If your website didn’t answer most of your visitor’s questions it will be a rare day in the world of Internet marketing when someone calls you on the telephone after visiting your site.

We need to remember that the biggest advantage of the Internet is instant access to information. People can use the Internet at any time of the day or night, any day of the week, from anywhere in the world. Most Internet users do not expect to “call for more information” about a product or service unless your products or services cannot be fully explained or the final negotiations cannot be completed without a face-to-face, email, or telephone conversation.

Let’s see this example of importance of page content: A costume rental business website had this content on their home page (information that identifies the company is blacked out).

Now, assume you found this site and didn’t know where they were located (the only clue is the area code on the phone number). Would you call them to find out where they were? Would you be interested in knowing if they rented costumes over the Internet? Would you bother to contact them if you found another site that clearly stated that you could rent costumes from them over the Internet?

Let’s write a short home page narrative for this website that should answer most of the commonly asked questions a new visitor may have (name has been changed for demonstration purposes).

Thompson Theatrical is the largest costume and vintage clothing rental business in northern State. We stock over 15,000 costumes including complete costume sets for over 250 of the most popular theatrical productions. We will rent costumes, formal wear, and vintage clothing to customers anywhere in the United States and Canada and will ship via UPS or FedEx.

Please browse our gallery for photos of some of our most popular vintage clothing and costumes. Because of our huge selection we are unable to show all of our rental clothing and costumes but please feel free to email us or call us. We are open M-F from 8:00 – 5:30 p.m. Central Time. We will gladly take photos of costumes or clothing that may suit your needs and email them to you to assist you in finding exactly what you are looking for.


Most of our theatrical production costumes are size adjustable, our vintage clothing is not. All of our costumes and vintage clothing rent for less than $60 per week with special discounts available for theatrical sets starting as low as $15 per week per costume. We only carry high quality costumes and clothing and are committed to providing exceptional customer service. Your satisfaction is guaranteed and we ship promptly. Contact us for rates on overnight or priority shipping information.

There are a number of reasons our page content is essential.

The example above is 227 words.

Search engines have some important keywords to index.

The word costume appears 11 times in this introductory text.

The phrase vintage clothing appears 4 times in the introductory text.

The word rent (or rental) appears 4 times, making the search terms rent costume or rent vintage clothing very powerful.

The visitor knows where they are located, what services they offer, what their business purpose is, and that they can rent costumes from them from anywhere in the U.S. and Canada.

Visitors know they can receive photographs of costumes or clothing before renting them to ensure they are getting what they want.

The end result of this minor change – the site will index better in the search engines and potential customers know that they can do business with this company over the Internet.

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