How to Write Your Website Copy
With your website experience being the main gateway into your business, content is what gives it meaning. It draws people in and allows them to understand a site’s purpose and take action. It answers the potential clients’ questions.
It’s important to make sure your content matches your mission and is a reflection of yourself and your brand. Here are 5 tips to make that happen:
#1 — Decide the main purpose of your website
When writing your website copy (content), you need to consider: what do you want your audience to do once they’ve arrived at your site?
Your navigation menu should clearly reflect your purpose. The page titles you choose should be simple and direct. Every page on your site should be complete enough to answer your potential client’s questions without them needing to ask.
If you are selling items, your site should have a clearly-labelled Products page. Your customers will want to read detailed information about each item you sell, including customer reviews and testimonials if you have them. If your business offers services, rather than products, you’ll want to have a Services page where you will flesh out all of the details.
Whatever your purpose is, stay on track. More information may seem like a good thing, but if it’s not necessary for your site’s purpose, it’s not helping.
Make it complete but keep it simple.
#2 — Know Your Audience
As much as we’d love for everyone to appreciate the hard work we put into our websites, not everyone is going to — and that’s okay!
Your website isn’t for everybody.
It’s your job to decide who to engage on your site. There are a ton of options when it comes to choosing your audience. You could decide to appeal to a broader audience or choose to focus on a specific niche. There are pros and cons to both; the important thing is that you know who you’re aiming to reach.
Identifying your audience will help you to decide the approach you will take with your copy. Your tone of voice should be appealing to your ideal client. You wouldn’t speak to your grandmother the way you would speak to your friends. Think of your site audience in the same way.
Ask yourself:
Who are you talking to through your site?
How would they want to be spoken to?
#3 — Then make it about them
In order to capture the attention of your audience, you need to talk about them, not yourself. Your audience wants to know how you can help them solve a problem.
#4 — Write for scanners
That is, for people who read quickly. In this day and age of information overload, people tend to scan through content either to decide if it’s worth investing their time to explore further or to just pick up the important bits before moving on.
Here are a few tips to make your page scannable and make sure that what’s important gets seen:
Make text readable by keeping your sentences and paragraphs short. Bullet points and numbered lists are incredibly useful in bringing emphasis to what matters.
Break your website pages into distinctive sections with headings or different background colors; anything to break up the page as you scroll down.
Use clear and simple language to get your point across quickly and concisely i.e. avoid scientific words or jargon
As George Orwell observes in his six rules for writing,
Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out…Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
A free online tool that can help to make your writing bold and clear is The Hemingway Editor. It evaluates a piece of writing for clarity and simplicity. It makes sure that your reader will focus on your message, not your prose.
#5 — Give it time
Once you’ve completed your first draft, leave it and come back to it a couple of days later. You’ll most likely be armed with a fresh perspective.
At same time, don’t overcook it. Give yourself a maximum 3 revisions then move on. You can always change it further down the road.
#6 — Review it regularly
Successful content writing is dynamic; once you’ve completed your initial website content, monitor your site for progress towards your goals. You’ll know your website is effective when it’s purpose comes to life.
But your purpose and audience may eventually change as your business grows. If this happens, you will need to edit or rewrite your website copy to stay consistent with your goals.
For the best results, review your site regularly and make changes as needed.
