Want to know how to write website content?
If so, you are in the right place.
What is Web copy?
Website copy refers to the main text on your website aimed to sell your products and services.
The content helps your visitors guide you through the website, define your brand idea, and inform people about your brand’s products and services.
Usually, a website includes pages like the Homepage, About Us, Services, and FAQ.
Website content is nothing but the content present on your website that a user can interact with and get all the information.
It comes in three categories:
- Textual- It is anything text-based or written, like blogs, articles, or even the homepage.
- Visual- Anything a reader can see, like videos, photos, or an infographic.
- Aural- It is audible, like podcasts or songs.
Websites need a unique style of writing.
Reporters report the news with a dramatic touch. Academics explain the challenging ideas with few citations. Web content writers must share the information as concisely as possible.
People go through websites differently than other media forms; they do not read; they scan the content. As a result, people read just 20 percent of words on average when they visit a page.
So, how to create content for the website?
Tips on How to Write Website Content
- Know your audience- The first tip on how to write website content is to understand your audience. It sounds simple, but many writers get stuck thinking about writing content.
If you face the same problem, before curating content, think about your target audience whom you are trying to reach.
Before starting to write, ask yourself a few like who is your audience? How can your brand help them? How will they find your site?
Customers can find website content through various paths, including social media sharing, links from other sites, email sharing, and search engine rankings.
That last method plays a significant role when you write website content.
Your content could be well-researched and informative, but if you are not optimizing the content for search engines, there are high chances that people will not be able to find it.
- Know your competitors- If you want to learn how to write website content, then the next thing you should do is understand your competitors. It is always an excellent step to research your competitor’s website.
Visitors visiting your website will likely consider the competition, so you must decide whether to offer similar content or something unique.
Again, research is the best way to find information about current trends that your competitors are following. It will keep you ahead of the game.
The simplest way to do this quickly is to search your main product, topic, or service online, find which sites are ranking for the same issues, products, and services, find out what they are doing, and present your different information.
- Keep your readers hooked from the first line- As discussed at the start, you will have hardly 15 seconds to capture your reader’s attention. If somehow you can manage this, your next challenge is to make your reader stay on your site.
You can start your content with some interesting data, a question, or a one-sentence story. Make sure people are bound to read your whole article after reading just the introduction.
- Always follow the “inverted pyramid” model- Web readers have short attention spans. They will decide whether your website has the information they want in seconds. So design your content in an upside-down pyramid style.
So, what is a pyramid style? In this, you should put the most important messages at the top part of the page. Then, slowly come to the less important ones, which should be more specific and supporting information.
For instance, say you are creating a web page that talks about a conference. The essential details, including the description of the event, location, and date, must appear at the top part of the page.
Following those, mention other supporting details like who the speakers are and the lecture topics they would focus on can be discussed in the middle part of the content.
The less important information, like the organizers of the conference, the history of the meeting, or maybe a few resources, would be correct to mention at the bottom side of the page.
- Be concise- If you want to say something, say, for example, in 75 words, then don’t say it in 150 words.
Make sure your message is clear and intact but not in a descriptive manner.
Too much description will make the reader feel bored, and they may leave your website. So, give precise information to your readers.
- Use active voice- When searching for how to write website content, you should remember the next significant tip to use active voice instead of passive while writing web content.
For instance, instead of “these products can be ordered on our site,” it’s better to say, “You can order the products from our website.”
In addition, an active voice helps in creating reader-friendly, easy-to-scan sentences.
It also sounds as if you are speaking to your readers directly. Therefore, content written in an active voice is more engaging.
- Include multimedia- Studies have proved that the human brain understands or interacts with visuals better than content. In addition, human beings process visual information faster than explicit content.
A simple-to-read graph or chart can better define a complex topic than plain text.
It is not mandatory to be a graphic designer if you want to include visuals in your website, as there are different tools like Canva to create images. Images also break long texts, making your page easier to read.
- Urge readers to act- Do you remember we said in the beginning that you must have a goal before you start writing? So, it’s now time to apply this logic.
The main motto of your web copy is to encourage readers to take action. It can be anything like you want your readers to join your course, buy your product, enter your mail list, or subscribe to your blog.
By using an explicit “Call-to-action,” including words like “Sign Up,” “Join Now,” “Subscribe,” and “Learn More,” you can ask your readers to do the desired action.
Following these tips will help you to build a great website, and it will help you to bring traffic to your website. Curating website content is one of the powerful SEO hacks that will help improve your website’s position in search engine results and help you become an SEO expert.