Copywriting — quality page text guidelines

Copywriting for websites goes along with the notion that you must write original, quality content intended for human eyes.

You should remember that

• Your customers are humans, not search engines.
• You don’t want just traffic to your website. You want to attract targeted users and customers who are actually looking for your products and services. It is better to have a higher conversion rate of visitors to customers than just a higher volume of traffic.
• Any SEO copywriting which artificially delivers traffic will only benefit your site temporarily; once the search engines find out, they are likely to penalize your domain(s).

So what are some good practices for website copywriting?

1. On the first run, please ignore keyword analysis

When you’re writing, do just that and write. Only after completion should you then check the search engines’ keywords to ensure you have captured all the ones you’re targeting. This way, the text will read naturally and appeal more to your target audience.

2. Speak in your own tone

Avoid technical jargon and overly complicated language when writing for online readers. You should speak naturally and have a conversational tone with your audience.

3. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes

It is advisable to write in the second person because if you talk too much in terms of ‘I’ or ‘We,’ it can make the text sound spammy. Sometimes it’s unavoidable when you talk about your company’s past achievements and your services, but you should try to minimize first-person use as much as you can.

4. Ensure your content has purpose/relevancy

Start by making your point and explain the purpose of the page. Website content should be kept short, and your text should be useful and/or informative to give it value. Otherwise, why would anyone take their time to read it? Please think of your target audience’s questions and try to answer them throughout the article.

5. Break up the text

Reading large bulks and paragraphs can be tricky, especially when reading on a smartphone/tablet. Use titles, bullet points, headings, subheadings, and plenty of white space to break things up. Also, use bold, italics, and pictures to break up text and make it more comprehensive. Sometimes readers can get overwhelmed by the amount of text on a page if it isn’t broken up properly.

6. Internal linking

Link to other pages on your site which might be relevant to the reader, and include any relevant media or resources as outbound links related to your topic.

7. Engagement

Engage with your audience and make them want to share your content. You should ensure that you have social share buttons active. If possible, include a comment section and encourage readers to leave their thoughts.

8. Conversion

Include “call to action” buttons in relevant places. It is important to tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do next. Include the relevant information to do so, whether it’s filling out a form, buying a product, or signing up for something. You don’t want your articles to sound too salesy. So don’t go too hard on the call to action. You might want to showcase your USP (Unique Selling Point) and consider what sets you apart from the competition.

9. Proofread

Don’t be afraid to outsource your work to a copywriter to assist you with this task. Get in touch with us to discuss your next development plans and needs.

10. Free Resources

Be generous with the information and resources you’re giving away for free. Having relevant freebies will attract qualified leads that you can direct to the commercial part of your website. Writing text for your website can be a time-consuming task, but the upside is that you only need to do the basic stuff once.

If you need to write content for your whole site, create a list of all of the pages you need and work your way up from the pages you find easiest to write about. You’ll feel you’ve progressed rather than being stuck on one page.