A successful online venture needs three things: Traffic, Engagement and Conversion. Today people can travel to Mars but it takes something else to make a digital presence worthwhile for business owners. If you have been staring at a white page wondering what to write, here are 13 tips for writing killer website content.
Why Website Content Writing is Important
Website Content should be conversational while providing an experience of knowing you better. It’s like a virtual coffee chat. If you walked into a coffee shop and didn’t know right away what they offer and where to place the order, would you go again ? I’m guessing not. That is what we want to replicate with words, structure, and experience in an online world.
13 Tips to write Conversational Website Content
Website content starts off with research, analysis, brand guidelines and keywords. You can start yours in a word document with the following tips and as you understand the brand, you can structure your content that works for your service/business. Let’s begin.
1. Define Your Story
Your website reflect your story. Often my clients ask how do they differentiate themselves with their competitors. The answer is begin with your story. For example, if you are a coach, it’s easy to beat yourself up thinking there are a million other coaches out there. But what makes you different as a coach is:
- Why you became a coach
- Why this matters to you
- What skills you have developed from your experiences that help an audience.
2. List Your Unique Proposition
Once you know your story, the next step is clearly to define your services. Break it down and write as if you are explaining to a 5-year-old. In a digital age, you can never assume people understand your intention right away. Let your experiences , skills and credentials drive your unique proposition.
3. Create Customer Personas
As you understand your audience better, you can create personas in mind that could benefit from your services. For example, if you sell hand soaps, analyze the consumers who bought your products. How old were they? Do they have kids? What platforms do they normally use? What is their age group? Do they love to celebrate? You can go as much as detailed as you like.
4. Differentiate Features vs Benefits
Your business provides a feature that benefits an audience. When you write content, write in both ways. You can use I statements to provide credibility in what you do but when you are offering a service, it makes sense to talk about the benefits of buying your product or using your service. For example, you can say- “Let your skin feel loved this winter” for a soap that targets dry skin.
5. Structure Your Content
Structure gives direction to the users. Going back to the coffee shop example, if you didn’t know where to place the order and if there were no signs, you are not going to buy any thing. That’s what a structure does for an online presence. A typical website has but not limited to:
- Home page
- Services
- About
- Contact (also builds authority as per google)
- Blog ( optional)
6. Have Compelling CTA’s
CTA is a call to action button. Tell your audience what you would like them to do. This could vary from contacting you or reading your story or portfolio. If you are confused with this, research other websites and understand what is working. Use compelling words on your buttons that persuade users to click and engage with your content.
7. Define your Tone
Words do have feelings and provoke an emotion. Based on your brand guidelines understand what tone resonates with your services and audience. If you have trouble figuring it out, ask yourself if you had an influencer/celebrity endorse your brand, what words would they use? Your content tone could vary from powerful to playful. I’d like to choose two to three for a brand outline and then use words that reflect that emotion.
8. Build Credibility
Trust is the foundation of your business. Adding credibility to your work helps your audience understand why they should trust you with your offer. You can include customer testimonials, certificate programs, and your experiences. Find the balance between laying out the benefits, your offer, and testimonials.
9. Add Visuals/ white space
Website content should be easy to read across multiple devices. If your content is not easy to read, users will leave your page right away. Place enough white space so you give the users a chance to understand along with images that depict your brand.
10. Leverage Copywriting Frameworks
There are a couple of copywriting frameworks that help you outline your content. Now that you have your content and layout laid out, use a framework for your website content
Some examples include:
- AIDA – Attention-Interest- Desire- Action
- PAS- Problem Agitate Solution
- FAB- Features- Advantages – Benefits
11. Get the Primary keywords
If you have a digital business, then SEO is a part of the business strategy whether you love it or not. Implementing basic SEO helps google to help you. If google doesn’t understand what your business is about, it’s not going to display your content to potential customers. That is where keywords come into place. For more targeted content such as landing pages or blog posts, you can use long tail keywords. But your website should be known for one or two main keywords.
12. Choose a Responsive Design
Web Design brings it all together. The right design is an investment for your brand.Based on your knowledge, experience, and time, pick an option that works for you. Some options include but not limited to:
- Squarespace
- Wix
- WordPress
If you had a restaurant and if the place looked shabby, no matter how good your food may taste, customers are not going to enjoy the experience.
13. Measure Results
Like sales or revenue, you can measure how effective your content is online. Metrics include but are not limited to page views, unique visitors, conversions, email subscribers, button clicks, contact page queries, bounce rate, etc.
Once you have the content published, ask customers to give feedback on the words and layout. Listen to the words they described your brand. Iterate as needed. Your website is your story online, make it count.
Hire A Professional Copywriter
Sometimes it’s okay to ask for help. Website content is not about journal prompts. It starts with research, brand guidelines, tone, personas, brand personality and so much more. I hope this post was helpful in writing your website content. A solid website copy begins with a content strategy framework that can be used not only for your website but also as a guide for all other content for your business as well. If you would like to know more about the framework, click below to book your free consultation with me.
Leave a comment below on what else would you keep in mind while writing content for your website. Would love to hear your perspective
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