Last week, we discussed a type of content writing known as “Active Content.” Active content is content that has some type of call to action. Often when readers visit your site for information, they read what they need and then close the page and move on. Adding a call to action gives them a mental reason to stay on the page and a “next step” so that they don’t immediately bounce to some other site.
Passive content is, of course, the opposite of active content. It’s content that has no call to action, and thus doesn’t necessarily improve your ability to turn visitors into sales. In a way, passive content is less valuable than active content. But passive content isn’t without value. There are reasons that you may want to use passive content as some of your articles. Some of these reasons include:
- Informational Marketing – Content isn’t always about making sales. It’s about appearing like an expert and letting others see that you know what you’re talking about. You’re not always trying to sell others when you’re building content. Sometimes you’re simply trying to get people to read your blog and find your site interesting. Since sales pitches – however subtle – can turn off readers, some passive content is a good way to ensure that your visitors don’t think you’re just always trying to sell them on something.
- Relationship Building – Similarly, not all content is about marketing. While the purpose of content is to help your company rank well in search engines, your blog readers themselves may be current customers, rather than potential customers. Current customers will be annoyed if you are consistently plugging your products, so passive content keeps them interested in reading your blog and hopefully remaining a customer.
- Writing Quality – When you have 500 pages on your website, your writing quality is going to suffer if you’re always trying to plug your service. There are not many ways to say the same thing over and over again. You may find yourself repeating words, or writing your content in such a way that it appears “lower quality.” Since all of your content needs to be the highest quality possible, it’s often best to create passive content once in a while to mix things up.
Any homepage, of course, should always have a call to action. As should any landing pages and any content that you genuinely think will bring in customers. But for basic information articles that are designed to do nothing more than give people an answer to their questions, passive content is not the worst idea. A call to action can always be added to the pages that get the most hits, and the rest can simply be site building content that increase your pagerank.