Writing content for a website can be akin to walking on a tight rope, one wrong step and you fall off – or the user closes your page. Either way, it’s not a great outcome. Great web design needs great website copy.
It’s really simple to fall into the trap of thinking that the website should be all about your company, after all, it is your biggest marketing tool and the best place to showcase your company brand. But as web users get more and more savvy, they want the web experience to be more personalized or more about what they want.
When writing your web copy, it is easy to get sucked into writing super sales-y copy. But what does your audience actually want to know about? Put yourself in your audience’s shoes.
Put the most important information first. What do you think people want to know about your company? Probably a few words about what you do, your first information should be your value proposition. A clear value proposition should be a few words, not a few sentences.
Ie. Apple: we make the Iphone. Nike: we make apparel for sporty people. McDonalds: we make cheap food.
An audience wants to scan and get all the information they need quickly. The average user may spend as little as 15 seconds on your website. Make those 15 seconds count. Good web design can make users stick around, so can your content. If you give your audience quick hits of information, they can easily find out the answers to their questions which will make people more likely to stay longer.
Make it as grammatically correct as you possibly can. Yes, the odd misplaced comma is nearly unavoidable, but if you are regularly spelling things incorrectly or your grammar sucks people will click away instantaneously. Hell, you may even become fodder for social media grammar queens. Don’t be an example of what not to do.
Leave the marketing speak at home. Cut out the jargon. People don’t want double talk, they can smell it a mile away. Be as authentic as you can in your writing, talk to your web audience like you would your friend, you wouldn’t try to b.s. your friend, would you?
Have a clear call to action on every page. Spell out for people exactly what you want them to do. Do you want them to sign up? Then tell them, want them to contact you? Tell them! Some great call to actions include build, grow, learn, get, discover. It is also a good idea to convey a sense of urgency in your calls to action using words like now, today, before and ends. Ie. Discover more today!
The About Us and Contact pages are some of the most visited pages on your average website. Yes, the contact page needs very little information, but make it interesting and short. Be engaging.
And finally, the best piece of advice for writing for the web is this. Be conversational, otherwise it seems like someone talking at you, not to you. Don’t be a website robot. Ask questions, be fun, uplifting, light and don’t be negative. People get enough negativity all day long, they don’t need it from their websites too.
There are always exceptions to every rule, above all if you are writing content for your own website it should be an intuitive experience. If it isn’t feeling good and intuitive, try calling Sparrow at our Calgary office, we can chat and see what we can do for you.
